Redefining "Grateful": My First PCV Thanksgiving

     Happy Thanksgiving friends!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday filled with lots of food and family.  This year, I spent my first Thanksgiving away from my family.  It was sad not to be around my loved ones during this time, but I was lucky enough to spend it with friends.  Every year, a sector of the Peace Corps organizes a Thanksgiving celebration, a chance for all 200+ volunteers to come together and eat great food!  These celebrations are legendary here in Panama, and I was so excited to go this year!

     I left for Thanksgiving early in order to stop by my friend Meredith’s site.  She lives in a town called Alto Caballero located in the Comarca, which is a province in Panama consisting mainly of indigenous Ngobe Bugle people.  Their culture is very different from the Latinos that live in my site.  The women wear traditional dresses called ‘Naguas’ and decorate them with the triangle patterns called "dientes" or in English "teeth".  Here’s a picture of me and Meredith in Naguas doing the infamous "Ngobe Stare":

     The first day we went to Meredith’s adult English class.  She has a group of about five students who are really motivated to learn.  It was great to see how much success my friend has in her site.  Here’s a picture of her in action:

     The second day we went on a hike to another volunteers site.  In the Comarca, many volunteers have a site that they can only access by hiking in and out.  The volunteer that we visited, Nick from G 75, has about a two hour hike to his site.  It was a lot of work, but it was definitely worth it!  His site is at the top of a mountain, and the view was incredible!

     My friends and I after our hike up the mountain.  My muscles are still sore!

     On the way back, we saw a dead tarantula, the first one that I had seen here so far thankfully!  I was so afraid that I didn’t take the time to take a picture, and it made me very thankful that I don’t live in the mountains!  Other than that, it was an incredible hike and we were beat afterwards.  The next day, we all left for Cerro Punta. 

            Thanksgiving was an incredible experience!  I was able to spend time with friends that I hadn’t seen in a while and I also met a ton of new people!  Thanksgiving is held every year in Cerro Punta, Chirriqui, which is known for its cool climate and agriculture.  It’s always so amazing to see how versatile this small country is, and Cerro Punta is the exact opposite of my site.  It is a beautiful, mountainous region where it rains daily and temperatures drop to around 50 degrees.  I was able to wear my jeans, socks, and flannel shirt for the first time here!  It was awesome to be cozy again! 

            I arrived there on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving because I had a training for a GAD summer camp facilitator position I was chosen for.  GAD is a sector of the Peace Corps Panama program that stands for Gender And Development, and the summer camp is an annual four day event for selected Panamanian students 12-18 years old.  This year, we will have four camps throughout Panama because there is such a large number of volunteers who want to participate in it.  At the camp, the kids learn about goal setting, values, decision-making, how to protect yourself, and sexual education.  It has been a huge success in the past, and I’m really excited to participate in it this year.  I’m paired up with another volunteer to lead the green team, and we’re thinking of getting the green man suits and going all in with team spirit for the kids.  I might also wear my green t-rex costume that I bought this year for Halloween.  Either way, the green team will be killing it.  “Green team dream team!”

            The GAD training took place on Tuesday and part of Wednesday, then people started arriving for Thanksgiving.  On Wednesday night we had a talent show, and I didn’t know this before but PCV’s are pretty talented!  Here’s some pictures from some of my favorite performances:

    My fellow Azueranos and their Panamanian version of "12 Days of Christmas"

    My friends Kelsey and Amanda doing an interpretive dance to the song "Hot in Here"

     We had a great salsa dancing couple.  The guy tried to teach me how to salsa dance later that night, but gave up after 5 mins:

     I'm still not really sure what this group did, but whatever it was they looked good doing it:

      We had a really talented group of ex-street performers come together to give us a performance, they were fantastic:

     And of course, we ended with a tribute to the US by singing national anthem and cracking a Budweiser:

     After the talent show, we had a huge dance party in the lodge.  It was a great way to end the night! 

     The next day was spent prepping for the Thanksgiving meal.  Volunteers could sign up and help with the cooking/prepping/serving to get a discount off their meal.  While that was going on, we had a huge volleyball tournament.  It was province against province, and my friends and I represented Herrera!  We didn’t make it past the first round, but we had a lot of fun playing anyways. 

     Team Herrera!

      I also went on a hike to the cabanas where some of the volunteers were staying.  They were beautiful, and reminded me of ski lodges back home.

      On the way back, my friends and I past over a really beautiful bridge, and we decided to stop and take in all the beauty:

     This picture might be my favorite Abercrombie ad of all time:

     That night, we all sat down and had Thanksgiving dinner together.  It was incredible to see the amount of effort the PCV’s put into making enough food for 200+ volunteers.  The meal was great!  I couldn’t remember the last time I ate that much good food! 
     
     Heres a picture of the big assembly line for Thanksgiving dinner:

     My friends and I right before we stuffed our faces:

     My friend Kelsey really goes all out:

     After dinner, we had a superlatives contest.  Basically there was a survey and you could nominate people for different categories.  Here are some pics of the winners of the superlatives:

     Most metido: the PCV hidden away in their sites that you never see or hear about:

    Most ye ye: that PCV that hasn't given up the American style of living

    Most Panamanian: my friend Lexi won this category, she wants to live in her community forever

   
     Most likely to become a politician:

    Most likely to get rich or die trying:

   Most stylish:  My friend Sam won this category

     That night I was really tired, so instead of staying up for the dance party I went back to my room.  It was a beautiful room that I shared with two of my friends.  It had a fireplace and everything!  I tried to light a fire....it did not work I ended up smoking up the whole room.  Good thing I’m not a CEC volunteer! 

    The broken fireplace:

     The next day I left to go home, but before I did I bought a HUGE bag of vegetables for only $5.  I couldn’t believe it, it must have weighed 20 lbs.  I ended up splitting it with another volunteer because I didn’t want to have to carry it all back to my site!  But all in all it was a great week!

     Right now school is wrapping up for the year and people are getting ready for Christmas and summer vacation.  I still can’t believe that my parents and sister will be here in only 13 more days!  I’m running around right now trying to find a house before they get here, so it’s a little bit stressful.  My landlord told me a few weeks ago that she is moving back into her house at the beginning of next year, so I’m trying to get everything squared away with before my family comes.  I don’t want to be stressing out about anything when they are here.  We are going to be at a resort for Christmas, and then they are coming back to my site for a few days before we go to Panama City.  They will be here from the 22^nd-30^th and I can’t wait!  More updates to come after the holidays.  Merry Christmas everyone!

2 months later....

Hello again!  It’s been two months since I’ve last updated my blog, but that’s because I have been very busy!  In September, I had my IST training for two weeks.  It was the first time that everyone from my group had gotten together since we left for our sites, and it was great to hang out again.  For the first week, we were in Farrallon, Cocle where we had 8 hour days of intensive seminar trainings.  I learned a lot of useful things that I’m planning on bringing back and utilizing in my site.  During the night, we would walk to a beach that was about a half hour away and hang out there.  This first half of training was really fun because both TE and CEC volunteers were at the same training so our whole G 74 group was together. 

            For the second half of IST, we split up into our own sectors and had specific seminar training and applicable practice.  We were paired into small groups and had to facilitate 6 hours of an after school English club at the local elementary school and also give a professional teachers seminar in English to a group of professors.  For our English club, my friends and I focused on how to learn English through media, movies, songs, and pop culture.  It was really fun to work with kids for the first time outside of the classroom!   

The kids were awesome, and we were surprised to find out that they were also incredible break dancers!

           For our teacher seminar, we gave a lecture on how to create a student-centered classroom, which is a classroom that is not “traditional” rote learning style.  It went really well and it was a great learning experience for us!  Here's a picture of me and some matching PCV's pumping ourselves up before our presentation.  We were trying to look intimidating, but my friend Lexi in the middle didn't get the memo...

Here I am facilitating my first teacher seminar!  It was nerve wracking but exciting!  I learned a lot and the teachers were great!

After two weeks of intense training and practice, we all needed to go out and take a celebratory shot!  My friend Sam is the selfie master!

            IST was a great experience, but I was excited to return back to my site.  That same week we started facilitating at the local university a PCV developed program called Leadership Development for Global Education (LDGE).  It is a 10 week course for University English students that teaches participants how to become leaders and gives them the tools to make a positive change that they have selected in either their community or school.  It's interesting, but the pilot program is proving difficult to get off the ground at this smaller University.  I like it though because it’s a great way for us to talk with Panamanians our own age and get to have an open dialogue about some of the real problems they have here. 

          That Saturday, September 26^th, we celebrated my friend Cesar’s 26^th birthday at my house.  I made a cake and decorated the house, and 10 of our friends came!  It was a lot of fun!  We sang, my friends tried to teach me how to dance tipico, and we played cards.  I think Cesar had a great night!  I am really lucky to have friends my own age in town, especially ones that are so funny!

     The birthday boy and my friend Routillio

My friends playing the drums and singing for Cesar

            I’ve recently started helping some local girls learn how to play the flute.  Before IST a group of moms found out that I play and they approached me to ask if I could teach their daughters.  Panamanians have a lot of pride in their school bands, and the students practice every day for two hours!  So in September I started working with them for one hour once a week before their practice and it’s been going great!  This past weekend I got to see them perform in their independence parade, it was really cool!

            The first week of October my town was lucky enough to have an organization called Spay Panama come and host a sterilization clinic for the dogs and cats in Parita.  It was incredible, we had about 10 vets performing operations from 8 am to 5 pm and they were able to sterilize 300 + animals!  I was busy all day looking after the 3 dogs I had brought and then volunteering, mostly by transporting the animals between the stations.  I was also able to trap and bring over four stray cats to the clinic that had been bothering my host mom for a while!  All in all it was a very successful day, and now I don’t have to worry about taking care of any more puppies!

            The second week of October was a crazy one for me!  I jam packed three trainings into one week!  From Sunday to Wednesday I was at my friend David’s site on Isla Cañas helping him facilitate an Eco-Tourism seminar he had organized for his community members.  It was a two-day seminar, but because his island is hard to reach so I ended up having to get there a day earlier and leave a day later.  The first night we were there, we got to visit with the Ambassador to the US!  He and his wife were also on the island for the night to see the turtles lay their eggs, and they asked to meet the PCV's on the island.  It was great to talk to him again, he and his wife are such interesting people.  We even got to go out to the beach one night and see a turtle lay eggs for ourselves!  It was an incredible experience to see such a massive turtle lay her eggs and appreciate all of the work that goes into it.  On the second day of the seminar, I facilitated the English portion of the seminar, where I taught key phrases and vocab words to the participants to help them with customer service.  After the seminar was over, we got to take a tour of the mangroves of the island on a motor boat.  It was so cool because we were able to get out and climb all through them!  It was a very successful trip and I learned a lot that I can hopefully bring back to my community. 

I went out onto the beach for the sunrise hoping to see some hatchlings, but it was too early in the season.  

            The next day I left the island to go to the mountains for a fellow PCV’s library day event.  I am starting to build a reading corner in my primary school’s library, and I went to learn more about it and to network.  It was really cool what she had pulled together!  We were reading and doing arts and crafts with all of the kids in the library for a while, then a Panamanian non profit came to talk about the importance of libraries and told them an interactive story.  We ended the day with a talk about HIV/AIDS (given by a local youth!) and watched WALL-E.  I was glad I got to participate in this event, I now have a lot of new ideas and contacts for my project!

A Biblioteca Nacional representative kept the kids captivated with his story!

They also led a workshop painting rocks with traditional indigenous design patterns

Kids make the best funny faces, and love the opportunity to be silly in school!

A group picture of all the facilitators.   We're a colorful bunch!

            From Friday to Sunday I was at an Ultimate Frisbee coaches training seminar.  It was two days of training but mostly playing Ultimate!  We had a blast!  I really want to start an Ultimate club in my site because it’s a sport that boys and girls can play together and it’s great exercise.  The site where the training was held is very different from my site, so for one of the days we got to play in the pouring rain!  It was so much fun!  That night our great hosts made us a huge barbecue and we spent the night eating and playing games.  It was a crazy week, but I was lucky enough to hang out with some amazing people and learn a lot. 

           

            At the end of October, two English teachers and I finally got the English club off of the ground!  After lots of planning and red tape, we had our first meeting.  We decided for the pilot program to invite selected students for the last few weeks of the school year and then open it up to all students at the beginning of next year.  We have about 12 kids and meet each Thursday for two hours.  The kids are great, and it’s fun to do activities with them outside of the classroom.

            For Halloween, I had some friends come stay at my house and we went to part in a nearby town at another PCV’s house.  It was so much fun!  I found a full dinosaur costume at a goodwill for $3 and it was probably the best investment I have made here.  It was so much fun to hang out with everyone and celebrate an American holiday.

            During the month of November, there are a lot more parties than usual because they have Independence celebrations throughout the whole month!  On November 3, we had a huge parade here in Parita where school bands from all over came to march.  The parade started at 12pm and didn’t stop until 10pm that night!  It was a lot of fun to see all of the different bands and acts that passed by while hanging out with my friends.  Panamanians take their school bands very seriously, so there were a lot of different and elaborate costumes with bands from almost every province represented.  It was also really cool to see some of the girls who I give flute lessons to marching!

Here's a picture of one of my students dressed in the traditional pollera, she is having so much fun!

My friends Cesar and Guille embarrassing a baton twirler marching in the parade

The best bands were the independent adult bands that marched after all of the school bands.  They're incredible!

            Besides all of the crazy parties, parades, and trainings, life here in Parita has been going great!  I have been working a lot more with my teachers and am now really getting to know a lot more of the people around town.  The dogs are also doing great.  I have changed my puppy “Scout’s” name to “Neci” (pronounced ‘Nessy’) because I wanted her to have a Panamanian name.  I call her Neci after the Panamanian word “necia” which is a funny way to say “naughty.”  I decided to name her that because I was already calling her my “little necia” and when I made the conscious decision to keep her, I wanted to give her a permanent name instead of the original name that I gave to all of the puppies who now have different ones with their forever families.  She is getting so big!  I’m still training her, but I don’t think I will ever get her to not chase after the broom when I’m sweeping!  She is a good girl with lots of energy which keeps me active! 

Because standing up to eat like a big girl is just too hard....

            I am looking forward to the Thanksgiving party that Peace Corps puts on every year for the volunteers.  All 200+ of us go to a big hotel and spend two days eating and hanging out!  They hire someone to make a big Thanksgiving meal and everything!  I’m so excited!  Then just a few short weeks after that, my parents and sister are coming down to visit me for Christmas!  I have so much to look forward to, so naturally more updates to come!

A Vacation at Home

NOTE: I meant to post this before September but didn't download the pics in time!  Some info here is outdated but i'll update it in the next post!
Hello again!  I know it has been a long time since I’ve last updated my blog, I’ve just been so busy.  In one week I moved into my new house with the puppies and a friend, attended a conference for the weekend, went to school every day, packed to go home, and left for the US!  I was really lucky that my friend Shaylee stayed at the house to take care of the puppies while I was back in the US, so I was able to have a relaxing vacation at home without worrying about the puppies. 

The week before I left, we had a weeklong celebration in Parita.  August 4^th was the day of our patron saint, Santo Domingo, and the town partied hard!  There were lots of parades, masses, and bull fights.  The bull fights aren’t the same as they are in Spain where they kill the bull.  Here, they block off the plaza and people run away from the angry bulls that they let in one by one into the plaza.  Some people even try riding the bulls.  It’s really just an excuse to drink and spend time with friends.  But one of my teachers showed me a video from the previous year when a bull jumped the 5-foot barrier wall and ran through a crowd of people, so I guess there’s always an element of danger at these festivals.

Here's a picture of the bull fights in the Plaza.  Apparently its fun to almost get trampled by a huge animal and its always a big turn out. 

   
The plaza at sunset is always beautiful!  And the party lasts all night!

     Another component of the bull fights is cattle roping.  It's a big honor to be one of the chosen caballeros who competes.

     This is my friend Cesar outside of the cattle cars that they used to bring them in on.  One of the many!

My vacation to the US was really spectacular; it was wonderful to see all of my friends and family again!  I got to surprise my family too which was great!  I told them that my flight was coming in later that day and had my boyfriend Chris come pick me up when it actually arrived, then we showed up at the house to surprise them!  I walked through the garage door and found my dad sweeping, he looked up quickly and said “hi” then continued sweeping for a few more seconds until he realized who I was.  He thought I was my sister!  It was really funny! 

            I probably won’t surprise them again though, my mom and sister were so shocked that they started to cry!  Next time I’ll just stick to the original plan.  It also almost blew up in my face because I gave my mom fake travel information which said that I was going to be staying overnight in Dulles and she tried to get me a hotel room for the night!  I had to convince her that I would sleep in the airport and that I would be fine but it was a close call! 

     I was really excited to see my dog, Lily, and for the first 10 seconds so was she but then she got over it and went looking for her ball hahah.

            That Sunday we had a party at camp so I could see all of my friends.  It was great to have all of my favorite people in one place!  It was such a beautiful day, we had a BBQ and went out on the boat!

   
     I was lucky enough to make it back in time to see my friends from Bulgaria and Macedonia who work in Burlington during the summers!  They're some of the best people I know!

            The rest of the week flew by!  I went to a baseball game, saw a movie at the drive ins, went out to dinner, stayed at camp, witnessed some beautiful moon rises, and got to spend some quality time with my family and friends.  I even got an extra day at home too!  My flight was scheduled to leave on Sunday the 17^th , but when we went to the airport we found that the flight had been canceled due to maintenance problems.  So I spent that day with my friends and had a great family dinner.  While it was great to be home, I missed Parita and was happy to come back to my life here. 

     Here's a picture of my family and I out on our rock at camp.  We were really lucky to have such great weather!

 
 My boyfriend Chris and I hanging out on the porch at camp.  It was nice and cold while I was there so I actually got to wear a hoodie for the first time in 7 months, it was awesome!

            When my flight was canceled on the 17^th, I was really disappointed because I thought I would miss the most important celebration in Parita.  The towns day of foundation is August 18^thand I didn’t arrive back in site until very late that night.  I thought I had missed all of the cultural parades and festivities, but my friend told me that they were celebrating on the 28^th instead!  So I was able to go to the celebrations and participate in the festivities!  I got all dressed up to look like a Pariteño!  My friend Cesar has a cousin who lent me some clothes to wear and did my makeup in the traditional Panamanian way, meaning that my eye makeup was so dark it looked like I got punched in the face!  I was wearing the traditional shirt (una basquina), a necklace (for some reason its called “una bruja” which translates into “a witch”), my Panamanian sandals (cutaras), and a beaded hair clip (tembleque).  I also put on the traditional skirt (pollera) for a few pictures, but I was dying of heat so I took it off after 10 minutes.  Here's a picture of me as a traditional Panamanian:

            The rest of the day I spent time with my friends in the town.  There were many floats with marching bands, and at night there were floats for the queens of all 7 districts of Parita.  And of course, there were lots of fireworks throughout the day.  It was great to take part in this cultural activity!

     The whole town gets together on this day for the festival!  Here I am with some family friends I ran into:

     The people of Parita are very creative!  This mini stroller float made me laugh and they stopped so I could get a good picture of it!

     There were lots of floats with children dressed in the traditional Pana way:

     And more floats with queens than I could count:

    Here's my friend Cesar and I in the Plaza watching the parade dressed in traditional Panamanian clothes:

            The puppies have grown to be so big!  I have had the two girls puppies with me, and I think all of the locals get a kick out of watching me take them for walks around the town on leashes.  Its funny to them because no one really takes care of dogs here like we would think is normal in the United States.  They only give them food and maybe let them stay inside but that’s about it.  So watching me walk them on a leash throughout town is really funny for them.  On one of our walks last week a passed a little girl and she fell in love with Scout.  She asked her mom is she could have her and her mother agreed.  It turned out that my friend who I thought would take Madeline couldn’t make it work, and I had been looking for a home for one of the puppies.  I always said that I would take the one that no one wanted, and it looks like its just going to be me, Madeline, and Reina.  I’m really sad to say goodbye to her, but she will stay in town and get to live with a little girl so I’m confident she will have a good life.  I also found out that the mother is the older sister of one of my friends, so I have inside information that this is a good family that will be able to take care of her very well which is reassuring.  It will still be really sad to say goodbye though.  I would love to keep all of them, but I think sometimes its still crazy to keep two let alone three.

      Here they are helping me clean!  They love chasing after and biting the broom, most times I have to pick them up in order to get anything done!  Necias! (A pana word for 'naughty' I learned it in my primary school hahah)

     They like staying under the sink where its cool:

     And how can I say no to this face?  They're so cute I almost forget how necia they are!

            Next week I begin my In Service Training (IST) with the rest of my group!  It’s a two-week course where we will learn more detailed and specific information about our work, like how to write grants and other resources that are available to us.  It will be really great to see all of my friends again after so long, I can’t believe its been four months since we’ve all been together!  I’ll be able to update the blog when I get back to let you all know how it went!  Hasta luego!