Adapting to the Culture

> Taking showers with a bucket of cold water aren't that bad anymore and I actually tend to look forward to them on days where I'm filthy.

> I've grown to dislike hot showers which I never thought could be possible.

> I no longer see Spanish as something that is "external" and needs to be learned, it quickly becoming a part of who I am.

> I find myself judging foreigners as if I was a Panamanian, wondering what the hell they're doing out here.

> Plate after plate of rice doesn't bother me so much anymore.

> Air conditioning is weird. 

> I've grown homesick for my first host family when I'm out in other parts of the country.

> However, internet will always be like crack to us and I don't believe many of us will be able to break the addiction.

Personal, Cultural, or Universal

One of the most eye opening things I learned during my training is whether to classify an action as personal, cultural, or universal. A basic example of this would be a person, named John, that sings. Does John do this because he personally likes to, does he grow up in a culture that enjoys to sing, or does the entire universe love to sing? Even with a basic example, the boundaries of where this action lies are blurred. There could be cultures that look down upon singing and therefore don't enjoy it, maybe everyone in the entire universe likes to sing.

Even though there aren't clear cut boundaries, it is something helpful to keep in mind when approaching difficult situations. For example, if you're in another country traveling and your being harassed, stop and think before jumping to classify these people with sweeping generalizations. I'm going to say for curtain, this doesn't fall under universal. There's a chance it's a cultural thing and this group of people just doesn't like you. Realistically though, in the majority of situations, it's just a personal action. So, before saying that everyone that lives in X country is rude, stop and think to yourself, is it personal, cultural, or universal?

An Update on Panama

So this past weekend, I officially became a Peace Corps volunteer which was pretty awesome! However, I had a minor(and to my sister, yes I do mean minor!) neck injury some time back that I got checked out and it has finally been decided that physical therapy is in order to tackle this issue head on before I end up four hours outside of the city and away from a physical therapist. Therefore, I'm hanging out in the city for some time to take care of that. Already had two days of therapy and I'm feeling better.

As far as the state of this blog, I'm going to attempt to start writing a book. I've been tossing around the idea in my head now since I backpacked through South East Asia and really want to try it out. At the very least, it is better to try and fail than to never have tried before. Therefore, I'm going to shy away from sharing stories here. I'll continue to give life updates, post pictures, and some stories every so often but if I am successful with a book idea, you can read about it all there! ...or if I fail you can read about it here.

So that's about all for now, don't really have any fun stories to report since I've been hanging out in a hostel most of the time or any pictures either. Expect some in the coming weeks though!

The Awesomeness of my Site

> Amazing mountain views everywhere. It doesn't take very long to find yourself standing at one.

> The food producing plants. I've seen oranges, bananas, plantains, coffee, papaya, mint, lemon grass, sugar cane and others I've forgotten to mention. My region is also the orange capital of Panama.

> A waterfall with a swimming spot at the bottom. Don't think I have to say much more about this.

> Ice cold Coke within twenty minutes of walking. ...Enjoy the little things

> Tea every night. I've had some amazing tea so far made from lemon grass, mint, and cinnamon.

> Orange juice! This sounds strange but 99% of all 'juice' in Panama, and other parts of South America, have the ingredients for these drinks listed as "Water, sugar, ..." My site was the first time I've had fresh juice since arriving.

> Electricity from sundown until about 9pm. It's nice to have just enough electricity to charge your electronics but not enough that you'll end up watching movies and mindlessly browsing the internet the entire day.

> Cell service within walking distance. I only have to walk about 5 minutes to get service whereas other volunteers need to walk one or several hours.

> Clean drinking water that doesn't need filtering. Of course I am there to work on water, only a third of the community right now has access to this amazing water.

That's what I've gathered thus far from only 4 days in site. Can't wait to see what other hidden treasures my community has in the coming months.

The Next Step

Today marks both two months in country and my last night in my training community, Santa Rita. For the next few days I'll return to Panama City for a few days of administrative meetings and then on Thursday, I officially become a Peace Corps Volunteer! I'll spend the weekend relaxing with my fellow volunteers and then finish moving my stuff to my community.

My first three months in site will be spent with a new host family. I will work mainly to understand the community through a set of tools known as PACA. I'll focus on creating a daily and yearly schedule of the community, a map, and assess the needs of the community so that I can begin working on projects in the future. During this time, construction will both begin and end on the house I will live in after the first three months.

After those first three months, I'll have established myself within the community and will know what direction to start taking my projects. The remainder of my time in Panama will be to work towards completing the goals set during the first three months.

Wishlist

Please take a second to read the wishlist on the right side of this page. Thanks!

First Week in the Community

This past week I got my first chance to visit the site that I’ll be living at for the next two years. You can read more about my site at the blog post here and see the pictures that accompany this post here. All day Thursday we had presentations with our community guide in Panama City and then left early Friday morning for our sites. It was a 3 hour bus ride and then about a 20 minute slightly difficult, but not too difficult walk, into the community. I stayed the first week with my guide but will be moving in with a host family when I return next week.

We spent the rest of the day lounging around on Friday, and then Saturday morning we got to work. Each day from Saturday on was pretty much structured the same. My host family would wake up before I did, probably around 6am and I followed at about 7am. We would eat breakfast, shower, get ready, and by 8am we would be off for the day’s work. Hard work would be done straight through until 1pm, at which point we would return home for lunch and spend the rest of the day relaxing.

Our activity for Saturday afternoon was pasearing in the community. Pasearing is Spanglish word that generally means to walk from house to house, stop and talk for a bit, possibly have a quick snack or drink, and then move on to the next house. This is the foundation for many of the relationships I will develop over the next two years. Our community was rather small and we were able to pasear almost the entire community in four hours. Their Spanish accent is very different from where I am staying now and I was barely able to communicate. Thankfully, I have an amazing guide and he did all of the explaining for me. After this time we returned home to relax for the rest of the day.

Originally this relaxing drove me nuts and the first two days I was out of my mind with how much free time I had. After the second day though, I completely flipped my perspective and am grateful to have it. The first two months in the country have been completely nonstop and in my free time, I made a list of all the things I could do once I got to site and now I have the time to do those things! I managed to finish a book and a half while there, worked on Spanish, wrote lots of stuff, swam in the lake, and relaxed and did nothing.

The second day was church followed by a water committee meeting where again, my guide was awesome, and presented all the information he had learned in Panama City to the community. I gave a little introduction about myself but I didn’t understand about anything the other community members said which was rough. However,  the meeting in general seemed to be a success and the community is glad to have me.

Monday afternoon we went and checked out the local school and health center. Both were places I had, by chance, visited during my first tour of a volunteer’s site and the volunteer joined me for the day. I got to meet all the teachers and students in the school as well as the doctor who works in the community. There is also another volunteer who just started working on a farming project at the school and I hope to help him with that when the time comes.

Tuesday, my last day in the community, we got to tour the water system. This trip took almost three hours to tour both water systems but was well worth it. I finally got the chance to understand what I’ll be working on for the next two years. I’m excited to get back to start working on it.

And that was my trip to my community. I left early Wednesday morning back to my host family community.