Despedida, Swearing-In, and Vacation

10.3.12-18.13.12

The Saturday before we elft Santa Rita, we threw a despedida (going away) party.  It was pretty cool.  It seems like most of the town was there.  A small group of aspirantes and a host mom made arroz con pollo (a very typical fiesta dish), salad, and chicha.  I went to Chorrera in the morning for a few things and was put in charge of the cake.  I was also in charge of the slide show and had people coming by my house most of the afternoon.  It was fun :)  The despedida went pretty well, and then we all got together and hung out afterward.

I spent Sunday packing and looking at pictures with my host family.  I also cooked dinner (lasagna!) for them.  They loved it!  Then I walked around to say good-bye to a few people.  It was harder to say good-bye than I thought it would be.  On Monday morning we said good-bye to our families (also sadder than I thought it would be) and left for our 3 days in Clayton-yay hot water and air conditioning; boo sitting through more health, safety, and security sessions.

Swearing in was on Wednesday.  It was pretty exciting and fun to see everyone all dressed up :)  The PC Panamá director spoke and some representatives from the projects as well as 2 of the aspirantes.  They were really good speeches.  I wish I had recordings of them.  Then we all went out for a nice dinner and then hung out downtown.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, we all went on vacation together as a TE group: we rented 2 villas on the beach and spent the almost-weekend doing nothing.  I had fun cooking; it was quite the outing to buy food for 31 people for 2.5 days!  It was really good to have some final bonding/despedida time before we went of to todos lados del país.  Saturday night a group of us ended up staying in Santiago because the cleaning took longer than anticipated (and because we weren't ready to leave each other).  It was super hard to say good-bye to everyone on Sunday morning.  It's hard to believe I have only known these people for a few months.  I finally arrived at my host family at like 8pm.  I ate, unpacked the essentials, and slept; I was pooped! the end.