I have made it to Friday, but alas, Friday is not Friday because I have training tomorrow at my field director’s apartment. The good thing, however, we are starting later in the morning and are only meeting for a few hours before going out for some fun; rumor has that there is an art show going on tomorrow afternoon.
This week has been long and tiring yet educational. When we arrived together in Panama on Monday afternoon, all the volunteers collected their luggage and went through customs, that is all but one volunteer. Unfortunately, one volunteer discovered her luggage to be missing 😦 For the last four days she has not had her suitcases and has been living a very minimalist life. The end of the lost luggage saga came to a close today when the volunteers host family went to the central parcel drop of place in town and picked up her luggage while we were training all day.
Upon leaving the airport, we were whisked away to the bus terminal to catch a bus from Panama City to Santiago. I was quite surprised to find the conditions of the bus to be so much more nicer than what I experienced in Nepal. A bus with mostly comfortable seats and most importantly – air conditioning! This bus made a four hour ride so much more easier. I am now convinced that after a week, Panama is a 5-star resort compared to my trip to Nepal.
As I mentioned in the last post, my days are about 12 hours long right now; not leaving a lot of time for writing on the blog, reading, or general time to decompress from a long day of training, teaching, and learning Spanish. My first student teaching day last week went really well – wasn’t even nervous! Sitting in Spanish class for almost 2 hours at the end of the day is not the most ideal way to learn a new language, but I usually comprehend at least one thing or enough for one sentence to come home and say it to my host family (who are the most patient people in the world considering the language barrier between us right now). Lets just say, as unreliable as it may be sometimes, Google Translate is my friend right now!
Ok, so now I am sure you want some fun stories, so here we go! My first day of training started my ritual of taking a taxi home from a certain part of town because that was around the time it would be getting too dark to finish the walk home. Well, on the first day the taxi ride ended rather interestingly! Since I live with a host family, I obviously live in a neighborhood type area. When I told the driver where to stop he seemed confused, so the following is my translation of the conversation that he had with the nanny/maid who was leaving: “Do you have a Gringa living you?” The quizzically looks at my host sister who is standing in the door before replying, “Yes, I believe so!” The driver then says, “Oh! Well I have your Gringa here!” And thus ended my first full day in Panama 🙂
In the middle of the week there was the excitement of celebrating my host sister’s birthday. My oldest host sister turned 20 last week and upon returning from a long day of training, I was pumped full if delicious cake that basically melts in your mouth and a new ice cream flavor that was so good. Everyone sang “happy birthday” in Spanish, while I quietly sang in English. It was so nice to have such a joyous occasion during my first week here. It didn’t hurt to ice cream at the end of day that was temperature wise like roasting in an oven.
Friday night (when I first began writing this post, now that it is Monday), I came home to no host family, just a note and a “Gringa Sitter.” My host family had gone to visit a grandfather and asked the nanny/maid to stay until after I got home and until they were on their way home. While waiting on the family to return, I skyped with my mom for a while and when they came home they got to see her on my computer screen! The skype session only got very interesting when all females of my family came in my room ask me if I wanted to join them on their weekend travels….I correctly responded in Spanish that I like to travel and would very much like to go to Panama City with them for the weekend. So much laughter and happiness erupted from my room that I think anyone listening would have thought we were crazy. I said a complete, yet short, thought in Spanish correctly and my family understood me – score one for me!!! Upon returning to my skype session with my mom, she asked what all the commotion was about – I then relayed the story.
My first weekend consisted of me driving to Panama City with my host family and meeting more of the family – who also do not speak English (sigh). Before visiting extended family, we drove through the canal zone and stopped at the Canal de Panama visitor center, placed at the last lock before entering the Pacific ocean. It was so cool to stand on the observation deck and watch two huge ships enter the locks, be lowered to the next level, and then be towed through to the final lock before being set free in the canal. The original canal gates from 1914, which built and put together in the U.S., are still in use today – they have just added a set of safety gates.
     
After leaving the Canal de Panama, we proceeded to one of the very large malls in Panama City for some back to school shopping for other members of the family and to also eat dinner in the food court at the Albrook Mall. The rest of the night was spent visiting aunts, uncles, and cousins who live just outside of Panama City. It was indeed an adventurous weekend and one that I am sure will be repeated again and again in the future. More stories and photos about practice teaching and working in the Escuela Normal to come soon, but for now, just prepare yourselves for the exciting stories of Carnivales (Panama version of Mardi Gras) which begins this Saturday and lasts for 4 days!
From Panama with Love 