Site Visit 2/27-3/1

My site visit was really good.  It seemed to go by pretty quickly!  On Monday, I finally actually got to my site.  I met my actual counterpart, Zuleika, who seems really nice but a little shy.  I went to class and did some observation and talked with some students.  I left school a little early with Yasy to go meet my host family.  I will have an 18 year old brother: Jorge-Luis, a 13 year old sister: Yolibeth, a 7 year old brother: Jhon, a mom: Yovana, and a dad: Jorge.  They were super nice, but it was just super overwhelming to think about all the change that is coming!  I have my own room, which will be nice.  However, I feel kind of bad, because the room I am in is normally Yoli's and now she is sharing with her brothers.  Oh well.  Also, on Monday, I found out that I have another possible host family, so I could split my 3 months between them, which I will probably do for a couple reasons: 1) so I don't displace people for as long of a time, and 2) to get to know more people/different sides of town..
Tuesday and Wednesday were more like what have now become normal days.  I got up at 6, went to school at 7, started class at 7:30, came home after school at 12:30, ate lunch, took a nap, took a walk around town, came home for dinner, played uno/watched novelas, and went to bed around 9.  I can't wait until I get to know the town better.  Even now that I have been living here almost two weeks, I still feel like I don't know anything and barely any people, but that will come with time.
Anyway, I took a bus back on Thursday with another PCV whose site is also near David.  We miraculously had no problems and also ran into a current PCV from Bocas who was on her way to the PC Office in the city for a meeting.  Poor girl has a 2 day trip anytime she wants to go to the city.  It makes my 8 hour bus ride not sound so bad...haha.  It was really nice when we arrived back in Santa Rita to see everyone.  I think site visit made everyone realize how much we are going to miss each other when we're not together everyday.  But that's what we signed up for and came to do, right?  It will just take some getting used to.
That's all I have for now.  More to come soon: Swearing In, Vacation, and Arrival at Site.  Hopefully these aren't too boring.  If they are (and even if they aren't), please let me know what you want to know so I can hopefully answer some of your burning questions.  Also, I will  hopefully have more pictures when I post again :)  Miss you all!!!

Pictures, etc.

These are just a few pictures in more or less chronological order.  I will be trying to go back through some posts and put some more pictures in the 'right' places, but I'm hoping these will tide you over for now?  I know I have been terrible about pictures.  I will try to be better.  Hope everyone is doing well.  Also, I unfortunately failed at my task of finding out my new address last weekend :( For those of you that I haven't told already, please be patient with it...Finding out the address requires figuring out where the nearest/most convenient post office is and going there and talking with them.  Also, I just got an e-mail from the Peace Corps that my first letters are just now arriving at the office there...?  However, I hadpackages sent later arrive sooner...?  Who knows.  I will keep you updated.
Love,
Ally

 

My host sister, Alison, from Santa Rita and the neighbor boy, Alvin

 Alison in her pollera (the traditional dresses here; only worn on special occasions)

 Alicia, Yuri, and Alison

 The school in Santa Rita where we had most of our PST (Pre-Service Training)

 The rio in Santa Rita

 The chino (tienda owned by chinese people...very common) where we bought snacks

every day of training, and pretty much every other day too.

 The volunteer´s house where I went in Veraguas.  The one I think I will be
renting is actually the same color...

 Yasy (the special ed. teacher), her husband and her son when they took me to Boquete.

 Yasy's daughter and me :) Also in Boquete.

 A great view of the mountains in the background...one of them is Volcán Baru,
I'm just not sure which one yet...

 My new host family's dog: WiFi (pronounced wee-fee in Spanish).
They named her that because she runs around so fast...haha

 My 7 y/o host brother in Potrerillos: Jhon.  I don't know why he chose that moment not to smile...

 My (newly) 13 y/o host sister Yolibeth.

Somehow both parents and the 18 y/o avoided being photographed
for the time being...we will have to change that.

Community Entry Conference/Travel to Site Visit 2/29/12-3/3/12

The Community Entry Conference took place at CEDESAM, in Rio Hato.  It is pretty close to the beach and we actually walked to the beach on Wednesday afternoon, but there were tons of tiny jellyfish and we had to go eat dinner, so we didn’t stay too long.  At the conference, we met our counterparts (the teachers we will be working with at our site for the next two years).  Unfortunately, mine couldn’t come, but the (ready for this?) Special Ed. (!) teacher was the person who met me at the conference to take me to my site.  Her name is Yasy and she is pretty excited to have me coming to the school in Potrerillos Abajo, which is exciting, especially since I won’t even necessarily be working directly with her.  At the conference (which was 2 days, but really only 24 hours), we basically talked about what the expectations are from Peace Corps, from the volunteers, and from the counterparts, as well as some common cultural misunderstandings.

On Thursday afternoon, there were rumors that the Ngäbe-Buglé people would be closing the roads in an ongoing protest against a hydro-electric plant and possible mining in the Comarca (essentially equivalent to an Indian Reservation).  Anyway, because of this, those of us going to Chiriquí and Bocas del Toro (the 2 westernmost provinces) rushed out of the conference to catch a bus.  As it turned out, we weren’t quick enough to beat the road closure, so we ended up getting off the bus in Santiago, Veraguas and staying in a pretty awesome hotel: Hotel Gran David.  I think it fits the Peace Corps budget because like half of it is under construction.  So the 6 PC Trainees and our counterparts had basically a whole wing to ourselves.  It was super nice because not only did we have air conditioning and hot water, but cable TV, WiFi and meals at the hotel restaurant!  We ended up spending 2 nights at the hotel and to be perfectly honest, it was a great 36 hour break from reality.  We basically sat around and did nothing.

Saturday morning, we finally caught a bus at 8am and arrived in David (the provincial capital of Chiriquí) at 11am with no problems.  After that, Yasy took me to her house in David where I stayed the rest of the weekend and those in Bocas continued their journey for another day.  On Saturday afternoon, I took like a 2 hour nap because for some reason sitting around in a hotel is exhausting.  On Sunday, she took me with her family and we spent the afternoon in Boquete.  It was really beautiful (see pictures!) and I actually got cold!  Despite the unexpected travel hiccups, the whole 5 day adventure was really quite an enjoyable lead-in to my site visit.

Tech Week 2/23/12-2/28/12

This post is going to be short and sweet.  Tech week was theoretically our mini ‘student-teaching’ experience in La Chorrera.  I know all of you who actually did student teaching will laugh at the fact that mine lasted only really 5 days, only 2 of which was class actually in session.

The first couple days (really only the first day for me because my teacher wasn’t there on Friday) we spent getting to know our cooperating teacher and helping him/her set up the classroom and plan lessons for the first couple days.  Most of them were finishing up or had just finished their yearlong plan.  My teacher said he had it all pretty much together, so we just talked about MEDUCA (the Ministry of Education), teaching, and ourselves for a slightly awkward 2 hours where neither of us really knew what exactly we were actually supposed to be doing…

Monday (the first day of school) was the ActoCivico which is where they have announcements and sing the national anthem.  I can only hope that one day I will know the words.  If you care to look it up, it’s rather lengthy, especially compared to ours.  Then the day was spent in homeroom, so I just chatted with some of the students and then went to our ‘debriefing’ meeting at the library (after stopping at the ice cream shop on the way and teaching them how to make a milkshake…) and then went home.  Tuesday, I showed up ready to introduce myself in English and help with pronunciation because that is what my teacher suggested.  However, 10 minutes into the class he turns to me and asks if I want to teach the rest of the class, so I did.  Good thing I have a fair amount of experience making things up as I go.  Then we had our debriefing and then tech week was over.  That is all.