First Month in Panama!

¡Hola todos! We are so sorry we took so long to make our first blog appearance. It has been a bit longer than a month since we arrived to Panama and we have been in a super intense training since we got to Panama, this country has been amazing with hospitable people and wonderful nature sites (hope to see them soon). 

We are living in a host family, with Señora Genarina y Señor Nolberto. in a small town, about hour and a half west of Panama City. The town has lots of lomas, (hills), and is pretty hot and humid. There are many animals in the house, there are 4 parrots, two iguanas, a small turtle, 2 dogs and forty something chickens. They have a small farm on their property with bananas, avocados, oranges, soursop, aloe and other staple crops from the region. They both love to garden.

There are also some of their family members who come to visit. Martina and her husband Ariel are our host siblings and live a few minutes away. They are quite nice and hospitable. We went to their house to watch the world cup game between Colombia and Japan. All of them were wearing Colombia’s outfits (even shoes with Colombian colors). It was great!

Public transportation is a riot! The buses are called Diablo Rojos.  They are basically school buses brought from the states which are painted with plethora of designs with no correlation to one another. There are horror movie characters, cartoons, animals, and religious saints.  The buses are adorned with a full discoteca set of lights on top that makes the bus that glows more than anything on the road, and of course their mufflers have been modified to amplify their engine noise that makes you jump of the road when they are close by.

  

There are mangy dogs everywhere in our town. The concept of having a pet here is quite different.  Few are taken care of, and many malnourished.  Its really sad, and I don’t think we will ever get used to this.

Our group for SAS (Sustainable Agriculture Systems) consists of 27 people. It is a great group, and everyone has a good sense of humor (which should honestly be a requirement for Peace Corps). They come from all over the states, and have different types of experience. There is another group of 23 people who came with us, EH (Environmental Health). They live in another town about an hour away.

Basically our days are divided in two halves, one is for Spanish and culture lessons. When we are done we run home to get some lunch and possibly a shower (we are sweaty all the time) then we run for the second part of our day which is Technical training. We learn about Panamenian staple crops and planting. We make different kinds of compost mixtures and have a little finca (farm) where we plant and take care of our crops.

Our best friends are our machetes!  We carry them almost all the time. 

Sara’s Spanish has improved so much.  We only been here a little over a month and she has no more need for additional tutoring. We are not allowed to speak English in the house and try to practice as much as possible. Also we try to speak a lot of Spanish with some of our friends in the group.

We found our we are going to live in the provence of Veraguas for two years!  Our main focus will be coffee and staple crops.  We will have many opportunities for secondary projects as well.  We will try to stay a little more up to date with our blog.  We miss all of you very much!

Love from the Campo,

JC & Sara

oxoxo

Enjoy the pictures