Carnaval 2/18/12-2/21/12

Carnaval, known in the States as Mardi Gras, lasts 4 days here.  We began celebrating on Saturday and festivities continue through this evening.  It is really interesting to see some of the different customs.  One is that each town has a ‘Reina’ (queen) of Carnaval and they compete as the weekend goes on to eventually be the Reina of the nearest city (here, for example, La Chorrera).  It is essentially a beauty pageant, from what I can tell.  Another is that the kids run around with buckets of water and try to dump it on as many people as possible.  There are also culecos (big trucks full of water that spray people) and bailes (dances).  These last two are often simultaneous or at least related, which is nice because then you don’t get too hot while you’re dancing.

As PCT’s, our celebration of Carnaval was limited to the nearest surrounding towns due to our lack of actual identification (they are getting our more permanent visas and foreign ministry ID’s, which requires our passports…).  I just hung out on Saturday and did a lot of reading.  Sunday, I went to Los Mortales (where the CEC trainees are) with some other people from Santa Rita for the culecos and some music.  It was pretty fun, but I got pretty sunburned (although not my worst ever).  Yesterday, a group of us went up to the lake in Arenosa (not too far, but it takes about an hour in a chiva).  It was absolutely beautiful, and really nice to swim.  I didn’t get too much more sunburned (I was much more diligent about the sunscreen).  We also ate at a restaurant up there that served only fish...  Needless to say, I just ordered French Fries and Patacones, which were also much cheaper than fish.  I was so tired when we got back that I went to bed at a little after 8!  Today has been another lazy day.  I have done some reading, played in the kiddie pool with Alison and Yuri, and typed a couple blogs and e-mails.  It will be nice to get back to a more normal schedule tomorrow.

An update on Alicia’s mom: she is still in the hospital but is doing pretty well.  She needs a pacemaker and they are waiting for the shipment to arrive from the US.  It is supposed to be here on Thursday.  They said she got out of bed today, which is a good sign.  Continued prayers would be appreciated.

I guess that’s all for now.  The next couple weeks are going to be super busy: we have tech week in local schools (in La Chorrera), then the Community Entry Conference where we meet our counterpart, and then our 6-day site visit.  After that, we have less than 2 weeks left of training!  I can’t believe how fast it has actually gone!

Until next time!
Ally

P.S. Happy Birthday, Daddy J

Site Placement: 2/17/12!!

Today was a very exciting day: we found out the sites where we will be spending or 2 years of service!!!  Some people were nervous, but everyone was excited this morning when we got on the bus to go to Clayton.  It was cool because all the regional leaders were there to kind of welcome us to the province.

My site will be (drumroll please)…Potrerillos Abajo, Chiriquí.  It is about one hour north of David, the provincial capital.  It is also about an hour away from Volcán-the volcano you can hike to see both the Caribbean and the Pacific at the same time!! I’m super excited that it is in the foothills of the mountains, so presumably cooler that where I currently am (J).  My school has approximately 225 students and 1 English teacher.  The area has a mix of indigenous and Hispanic, so maybe I will even get the chance to pick up another language!

I think pretty much everyone was excited about their site-or at least excited to know where it is and a little about it.  Now all we have to do is wait 2 weeks to meet our counterpart (the person from the town with whom we will be working most closely), and to actually go and see it.  I for sure can’t wait!

Santa Rita Halfway Point: 2/15/12

I am getting into a pretty good routine with my family now (just in time for it to change, go figure).  It started out kind of rough because my family doesn’t really like to leave the house to pasear much, which makes it difficult to get to know the rest of the community.  I found out it’s because they don’t particularly get along with the extended family who lives near us.  I’m not sure what exactly happened, but they avoid each other to what I find to be absurd lengths, but whatever.  Now that I understand a little bit more, it’s less weird that they don’t go out much.  I have started to be better about going out on my own/with other aspirantes (Peace Corps Trainees).

I have also found that there is a lot of bochinche (gossip)!  I think it has to do with the fact that 1) it’s a pretty small town and half of the town is related somehow and 2) Panamanian culture is very ‘indirect’ meaning that they avoid confrontation at all costs.  It is expected that if you have a problem with something, you will go around it and tell someone else about it until eventually it gets back to the person with whom you have a problem so they can avoid being embarrassed by the ‘confrontational’ conversation.  It’s taken a lot of getting used to because as most of you know, I am a very direct person and find it offensive/rude if someone goes to other people instead of coming to me if they have a problem with me and I try to show other people the same respect; except that here it’s rude…oops..  I think this will be my biggest struggle during the next 2 years.

On a totally different note, my host mom’s mom went to the hospital yesterday.  From my limited Spanish, she had a bubble (may also be a clot) in her heart, and they had to do surgery to take care of it.  Prayers for her and for her 12 kids would be appreciated.  It sounds like she will definitely be in the hospital the next few days, maybe longer.

I think that’s all I have for now.  I will write again next week, after we find out our sites and celebrate Carnaval J.

PST Halfway point: 2/15/12

It’s hard to believe we are halfway done with training!  My days have stayed pretty much the same as when I spelled them out earlier.  It’s nice to kind of have a routine again; I haven’t really had one since before graduation.  Last week we had our second Language Proficiency Interview (LPI), so our Spanish classes changed up-just in time for the last week of classes…  Our tech sessions have been a mixture of deathly boring and quite practical.  It’s kind of a toss-up whether the day will be engaging or not.  Some examples of the two extremes: one day we talked about the elements of language and language acquisition-very theoretical.  Then we had a guest speaker one day who came in and talked about/did some very practical activities that we will (hopefully) be able to use in the classroom.  Also, about once a week we go back to Ciudad del Saber for a Core Session about Peace Corps policy and procedure.  We have to get up pretty early to go, but it’s usually quite the treat because the office is air-conditioned and there’s a lot of pretty good food, and a pool!  A few other PCT’s and I have taken to going swimming in the Olympic sized pool during our lunch break J  Despite all of these wonderful things, I think everyone is getting a little stir crazy and ready to find out our sites and get moving forward (Friday!!!!!).

After we find out our sites, we have 4 days off as ‘Time to Reflect,’ which just happens to coincide exactly with Carnaval (the Panamanian Mardi Gras celebrations).  For several reasons, we are not allowed to travel for the holiday other than to the closest city.  I don’t think my family will be going anywhere, but I am trying to figure out how to celebrate here.  We’ll see J  Anyway, after Carnaval, we start Tech week, which is when we go into some local schools and work with teachers as they prepare their classrooms and start the first two days of school.  After Tech week, we have a couple days out of Santa Rita to process and then meet our community counterpart for our sites!  After that, we spend a week in our site meeting people and doing some observation.  Then we come back to Santa Rita for a week or so, then back to CdS for swear in!  We will be moving into our sites on roughly March 17, which just feels like really soon.  Stuff is going to start happening really fast and the last month is going to fly!

Volunteer Visit: 1/27/12-1/30/12

The last weekend in January, we all had the opportunity to visit a current volunteer in his/her site.  I went to visit Simone in San José de Soná, Veraguas.  Basically, the PC told us where we were going, gave us money for the trip, and set us loose to travel on our own.  It was exciting and scary at the same time because we don't have a ton of freedom or free time in training.  A group of us all going to the same province caught a bus to the provincial capital (Santiago) where we had lunch at a fabulously American café called Cheesecake +.  From there, we went our separate ways.  It was interesting because this was really the first time I had been out on my own at all since I arrived here.   It was good to learn that I can do it, though.
When I arrived in Soná, I met Simone and within 15 minutes we discovered that she has family in Ankeny!  She is from White Bear Lake, MN and I think is the first person here to whom I have not had to explain CSB/SJU.  It was pretty exciting!
While I was there, we mostly hung out and I picked her brain about generally being a TE (Teaching English) volunteer.  We made chicken curry and baked cookies, went to the río and laid around in the hammock reading.  We also spent a lot of time walking and hanging out with the kids who live next door.
My thorn of the weekend was on Sunday.  We were on the front porch and the kids started wandering over.  Apparently their dad had gone somewhere to drink (as most men do on Sundays), so they were left with their elderly grandmother and didn't totally know what to do with themselves.  It made me sad, but I'm also glad we were there to hang out with them.  I had 2 roses for the weekend.  One was just having nothing to do/nowhere to be.  The other was that I finally got to go to mass!  I was able to follow what was going on, but it is going to take a while before I can keep up with all the responses.  On the whole, it was a good weekend.  I got to just hang out a ask a bunch of questions as I thought of them.  It makes me even more excited to arrive in my site!