Monday, January 28, 2008

Visiting some other volunteers

The last month I visited some fellow volunteers in their respective sites around the country. It was a good trip, I went the first week in January to visit a new province called Herrera for a friends bday which was pretty fun. Then a few later I visited another friend who lives in my province who is up in the mountains and lives near this awesome lake and has some awesome waterfalls nearby. Check it out everyone.

Here are pics from a typical Panamanian bday party. I went to visit a fellow peace corps volunteer for his birthday and his host family really went all out for him for his birthday.



My friend Robert and Matt with Rob´s host dad at his birthday party.


Here are pics from when I visited my friend Ashley in her site near a really cool lake. She also has some cooler weather here than in other parts of the country which is nice.

A cool waterfall about 10 minutes from her house



Me at the top of the hill above her town. You can see the cool lake down below.

Patronales

People here in Panama are hardcore Catholics and take all the holidays and festivals seriously. Every year in every community they have something called patronales which is the day that they celebrate their patron saint, well its actually 9 days long. Its nine days of mass that end the last day with a big mass and then a huge party afterwards. My town definately likes to have a good time and party and this day was no exception and was probably one of the biggest party days they have had since I have been there. The day of patronales in La Mesa was January 16th. They had a huge mass in the morning then had huge party the rest of the day, people from all over the country came for the party. They had Los Plumas Negras play which are a traditional Panamanian band that are very popular and who usually only play in big cities so its kind of a big deal. They also had a discoteca going too (which is a big dancw with a hired DJ). They had cockfights going on from 7pm till 2am. It was a good time, I had some friends come visit that day and hang out. It was a good time. I have some video from the cockfights, check them out.







This happened about 20 feet from my house.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Unsure of what to do...

I kind of don´t know what to put down in this blog because its kind of a weird situation that caught me completely off guard. I live in the town of La Mesa and work with a cooperative group whose main branch is in La Mesa but none of its members live here and live in 3 other communities. Well this week I went to visit the president of the cooperative who lives in one of these other communties. These 3 other communnities that I work in are by far the poorest communnities I have ever seen in my life, they are subsistence farmers who have no other work besides tending their farms to feed their families. Their is no clean water and no electricty. So this week I went to his town to go talk to him and upon arriving in the community I find out that they had a malaria outbreak and at least 5 people have been identified with malaria (and there are only about 80 people that live in the whole community). So it was kind of shock because they were all dealing with problem and well I didn´t know what to say or do. I mean what do you say people who are the poorest of the poor to begin with and then they find out they have malaria. Luckily I didn´t get it because I stayed in their town during the time period that the other people got malaria. But its just a wake up call that these crazy things are out there and that they are happening to people I know.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

BenBall Warriors

Just got to give it up to my boys in blue back at UCLA who are killing it right now. I wish them luck this week against the Washington kids that are coming into Pauley. No one expects to come into Pauley and come out with any easy W. Also wish I could be back home checking out my boy Love handling business.



My boy Shipp taking it all the way. You just got youtubed fool!!



And yet again my boy Westbrook handling biz against the boys from Cal!

GO BRUINS!!!

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Doing some social work with the Girl Scouts

I am labeled in peace corps as a follow-up volunteer because there was a peace corps vounteer in my site before I arrived. The peace corps volunteer before me helped form a Girl Scouts group so many people in my town have encouraged me to help out with the group. Honestly, I am little hesitant to help out because I am a guy but they invited me to go with them this week to do some social work to donate a bunch of clothes and take food to a poorer community nearby. The city council man from town also came along with us. By the way many people in my town are not as poor as most communities in Panama. Well, poor in the sense of that they are not starrving for food some of the people in my town would be labeled as middle class and are ok to well off relatively speaking. But on the other hand these girls don´t have much and are donating and helping out the little that they have to those less fortunate.

San Pablo River which is about 10 minutes from where I live.
There´s also an awesome river right by this community thats about 10 minutes from where I live. Oh yeah there was these kids that just wanted me to keep taking photos of them nonstop. You will see... Some of the kids that couldn´t get enough of the camera.

The kids couldn´t get enough of the camera.Especially this guy.The Girl Scouts passing out food to the community.This is where they cooked the food for lunch. A mom asked me to take a picture of her little baby.The girls passing out clothes to the kids.

Happy Mothers Day(better late than never)

For those mother´s out there, Mother´s Day falls in December here in Panama. I have some pics from a small party that was hosted at a school about 30 minutes down a dirt road from my community. I spoke with one of the mother´s who had 9 children graduate from this elementary school and said that in all her years as a parent that the school had never done anything like this before for them. She was pretty excited as were most of the mother´s. There was even a piñata for the mothers, it was a fun event. By the way this is a really small school with about 20 students in a poor rural area, some of these students walk 2-3 hrs everyday just to get to school.
Some of the kids playing soccer before the Mom´s day party.

Mom´s and their kids at the party.The piñata for the moms.

The aftermath of the piñata.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Happy Holidays everyone


The Christmas tree that my friends and I had and the gifts we had for our small gift exchange.

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Holidays especially a Happy New Years and I wish everyone the best for 2008. For me this has been an interesting year in many regards and is the first time in my life that I haven´t spent the holidays my family and friends. I have been reflecting a lot about family and what that means ( and I include my friends as part of family many have you and you know who you are have been like family to me) to me and how important family really is. I think I haven´t taken for granted a little my family and friends over the last few years because I see them so much and think they are always going to be there. But as I am here in Panama without any of you I understand a little better that you really have to appreciate your family and friends always because you never know when they are going to gone. But anyways don´t want to make this e-mail too sappy but I miss you all and I am having a great time here in Panama. I enjoyed a good Christmas with my Peace Corps friends and celebrated the New Years with my host family.


The view we had from the house we rented for Christmas in El Valle de Anton. It has to be one of the greenest places I´ve ever been to in Panama.


The house we rented for Christmas in El Valle de Anton.


Having some fun with friends at Christmas!

More Nov. 2007 stuff


Me and my training group on Swear-In Day!!

Hey everyone, I know its been a while since you all have heard from me and that because I have been settling in to my new community in Veraguas. I am writing to you all as an official Peace Corps Volunteer, I am no longer a trainee. I was sworn-in on Oct. 25, 2007 along with 37 other men and women.

My swear in was pretty cool because I was selected as the representative of my sector to give a speech on behalf of our group and gave a speech in front of about 150 people (including the US Ambassador to Panama and some high Panamanian govt officials) in Spanish.


Its been somewhat of a transitional time for me the last few weeks because I finished training and parted ways (well not forever just temporarily) with the 37 other people in my training group(which I have spent just about every single day with since August 12) as we all headed in different directions throughout the country of Panama to work on our respective projects.

Best spanish class ever!!

So a lot has changed for me since I last wrote you all. But I am having a good and safe time so far here in Panama. So far since I have been here in Panama I have been to 5 of the 9 provinces and have traveled a bit throughout the country, a little sad but I have already visited more of Panama in the last three months than most Panamanians will in their lifetime. I am now living pretty much smack in the middle of the country in the province of Veraguas (the only province in Panama I might add that touches both the Carribean and Pacific Ocean) about 30 minutes from my provincial capital, where there is a McDonalds. I know a little sad that I get excited about something like that, hahaha. As always, I miss everyone a lot and can´t believe its been 3 months since I have been out of the U.S., Panama is actually starting to feel a little more like home as I am getting used to all the quirks and different aspects of the culture compared to back home. I had a pretty good Thanksgiving up in the mountains of Panama with about 100 other Peace Corps Volunteers where we had a feast including turkey, ham, stuffing, yams, squach, mashed potatoes, pumpkin/apple pie, basically everything we would get in the states it was great. The place where we were at is a nice loge in the mountains and is the only area of Panama that gets cold and that you need a jacket. It actually feels more like your at a loge in the Alps (except no snow) then in Panama. Either way it was a good time. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving back home!!

So I am living with my new host family now who are pretty cool, they treat me real well and honestly I have lucked out with living situations twice because not all the other volunteers have such easy situations that I have had. Not only do I live in one of the more developed site as far as Peace Corps Panama goes (its one of the most developed of all the country) but my family treats me real well. They feed me three meals a day(sometimes more food that I can handle although its mostly rice, beans, and chicken everyday), I also have my own room with a big bed and the second day I moved in my host mom had a large dresser brought in for me to unload all of my stuff which I might add was the fist time in 3 months that I had all of my belongings out of my backpacks since I have been in the country. I also live in the "casa grande" aka "big house" in my town because my mom runs the lottery in my whole town.

The Casa Grande. Otherwise known as the house I lived in from Nov.07 - Jan.08

Well it's a underground lottery but she has about 15 people that work for her and does a couple thousand in sales everyday there is a lottery so she always has money around which is kind of crazy and there is always people coming in and out of my house buying lottery tickets from her. It's a pretty crazy situation. And I have begun to do work in my town as well, I am working at the moment with a group that runs a computer center in my town and also with the a cooperative that runs a few businesses including 2 general stores. My town by the way is basically I that I wanted when I first joined the peace corps because it's a pretty good sized site with most of the modern conveniences available if I want. But its also a pretty outgoing community that has a lot of typical Panamanian cultural events all the time. For instance, about a week ago my town had a festival that lasted all weekend long which included 2 nights of "discotecas" that last until 6 am in the morning and play nothing but Latino music (one of the nights which had a live band providing the music and was more traditional Panamanian music), 2 days where they had bull riding and bull toro events (which was pretty cool because you could get right up close to the cages, an accordion competition, and the last day with a parade that had about 10 elaborate floats go all around my town with everyone dancing and following the floats around town. And my town has another parade coming up this week but it will be a little different this time, its to celebrate Panamas independence from Spain. And I am getting to know people slowly but surely and getting my face out there. For instance, I was traveling for about a week out of my community during Thanksgiving time and while I was gone someone I have never met before from a government agency that deals with environmental protection came looking for me twice at my house and wants me to help them with something(not sure what because I don't know the guy at all) and go to one of their meetings on Saturday. So in the short time I have been in my town someone has mentioned me to him and he came looking for my help. So there you go.

I have been meaning to put a few different things in Panama that I have had to get used to while I have been so that you can get a feel of what it is I have to live with everyday. Here are a few. Well the most obvious that I have pointed out is that it rains everyday (although this time of year is the peak of the rainy season and it should rain less in a few months and I have already gone through 3 umbrellas) and no one leaves their house without their umbrella, however, it is still hot and humid as can be and the rain is welcomed because it cools the weather down. Everyone takes the bus here(including myself) and their public transportation system is really good. One can get from one side of the country to the other(it is about a 8 hr bus ride though, still getting used to the long bus rides) just about anytime of the day very easily for about $10.00 and anywhere else in between for less money. They have these crazy buses too in Panama City called the ¨Diablos Rojos¨ or Red Devils in English which are old school buses from U.S. that they paint crazy murals on with pictures of Mr.T, Snoop Dogg, Garfield, viking warriors, and just about any other figure they can paint on it.

Diable Rojo bus

Also interestingly, in about every home there are little geckos that live on the walls that people don´t get rid of. So yes there are little lizards that crawl on the walls of my house while I am watching TV and the reason that people don´t get rid of them is because they don´t bother you at all plus they eat all the crazy bugs in the house. Oh yeah the mosquitos and bugs are killer down here, I have probably been bitten by a couple hundred bugs and mosquitos since I have been here which is why it is mandatory for all volunteers to take malaria medication every week. Also there are bats around here and when a bat flies in your house its no big deal, people actually think its kind of funny and they think I am a crazy American when I get bothered by the bat. Also, I have learned to use a machete and people carry them around everyone and supposedly you can even walk in a bank with one as long as it is in a case. They don´t use weed cutters or lawn mowers they chop down their weeds using a machete. Something that drives me crazy is that all Panamanians love the Yankees and there are no other teams in the MLB only the Yankees. Just about the only MLB games they show are Yankees games and I hate the Yankees (sorry if there are any Yankees fans out there). I also have to take cold showers everyday no one owns a water heater in their home it's a huge luxury. Lastly, Panamanians have taken some English words and constructed their own pronunciations and variations of English words, for instance a security guard is referred to as a washiman, a quarter is referred to as a quata, they use the word pretty(however pronounced pritty) to say something nice, a homerun is a honron.

It rains everyday in Panama (its the rainy season and I lost my umbrella) Post from Nov. 2007






I cannot believe it but I have just completed my second month in Panama. At this rate a year will pass by and all of you will be living your lives in the states and I while be here far away missing you all in Panama. These past two months have been incredible and I honestly feel like I have learned so much in the last two months about life in general than I have in the last few years. Although I am not roughing it as much here in Panama as I would be if I had got assigned to another country or even compared to other volunteers here in Panama who are way out in impoverished areas there is still a lot of poverty here and I see it everyday. And although over the last few years I have worked a lot with money in my recent jobs and positions in various organizations over the last few years I have learned more about the value if money in the last two months than I have in the last five years. I have learned what the value of $0.05 is where in the states that's just chump change here in Panama it means a lot (3 nickels here will buy me a bag of chips & 6 nickels will get me a soda). One thing that I have already learned about myself is that I took money for granted and threw it around like it was nothing of value. Although I was in a position to that back in the states and although I will probably never be in a position of poverty or ever have to worry about money when I return to the states I now understand what it is for people to have no money, like not even enough money to feed your family. Its just a different perspective that I never had before. But anyways I don´t know what else is in store for me in the nest few years. So much more to learn about life and about myself. I am very close to finishing my training and leaving my familiar training site and all 38 other trainees and am ready to embark on a new adventure all on my own (well not really on my own but kind of) and head to my new home in Veraguasfor the next two years where the closest peace corps volunteer is about 45 minutes away (yes that means that if I want to speak English with someone they are 45 minutes away from me). I am actually in my new site right now writing you all this letter from the office (if you want to call it that its just a room with a desk and a bunch of paperwork)of my new work place on their computer. I´ve been here for about 5 days and return tomorrow to my training site for a little less than a week and then head to Panama City for a few days to get sworn in as a actual volunteer on the 25th. This is a huge day for me and I am very excited to have made it this far, it's a culmination of a dream that I have had for about the last 4 years to join the peace corps and an application/waiting process of over a year and half to make it this far. What I mean by that is that its taken me over a year and a half from the day I first submitted my application to join the peace corps to become an actual volunteer - a lot of waiting and a lot of patience but I finally made it!!! I am also excited about the next few weeks because it will also followed by about a week off at the beach will all of the trainees in my group and will probably be the last time we are all together as a group ever or at least till our close of service in 2009. We will all see each other again at various points and some more than others but it's the last time we are all together as group, kind of sad because we have been around each other everyday in training for the last few months. I still remember our first week after leaving Washington D.C. and after that first week it had seemed like we had known each other for months even though it had only been a few days because we were around each other all the time. So you can imagine after months of being together we´ve got to know each other pretty well. But we are going to Santa Clara about 2 hours outside of Panama City which is one of the most beautiful beaches in Panama so I am super excited for the time off and relaxation. After the time off at the beach I report to work Monday morning on the 29th of October and stay here for the next two years. Crazy!

But even though there is all this craziness here in Panama I also miss everyone back home a lot and I think about you all everyday and think about all the good times I would be having back home with you all if I were there. Just don´t forget about me everyone because I will return soon. But this was something I had to do, not because I wanted to get away from you all because trust me I miss everyone a lot but I had to do this for personal reasons. I get asked the question all the time, why did you join the peace corps?? And you know what I am still figuring out the answer to that question. Mostly it was because I wanted to test and challenge myself and see how far I could push myself. And being here thus far had been a challenge and I have so much more to go. I also came here so that I can say that I made a difference in the world. Although it has become evident already in my two months here that I am not going to change the world, I am not going to change the country of Panama, I am not going to make a difference in the overall grand scheme of things. Yes you heard it right I am not going to change the world here. It's a little disheartening for me even to write that and its something that I am struggling with here everyday its like well what am I even doing here. But what I am certain of is that I will make a difference in the community in which I am assigned, I will make a difference in La Mesa and even if I only reach one person or one child here and affect a positive change in their attitudes, way of thinking, or living situations than my job here was a success. I am here to make new friends, learn a different way of living, share a different way of living, explore Panama (its an amazing country people I know I keep saying it but its true as much as I miss Southern California, everyday I am amazed at how awesome this country is and am going to be sad when I have to leave), learn more about myself, and so much more. This is only a small list of how I feel right now about why I joined the peace corps and I am sure some of these reasons may change in the future as I form a better idea of why I am here. But before I go on and on I will leave you all with that for now.

I also have some more pictures attached – the beach pics are from a few weeks ago when I was traveling I stayed in a community for a week as part of a cultural training week, its was pretty good week for me. There´s also some pics of some awesome mountains in Panama called Cerro Punta where it actually gets cold, it's the one place in the whole country that gets cold. Its also where I will be spending my Thanksgiving with about 100+ volunteers from around the country who all meet up at this cool loge in the mountains and celebrate Thanksgiving "USA style" with Turkey, apple pie, the works. From what I hear its one of the highlights of the year because almost all the volunteers from around the country and different sectors get together for a few days. Oh yeah the last thing I want to share with you all is that the softball tourney that I helped organize was a complete success. With the help of the other trainees, community members, and peace corps staff we were able to organize a 2-day tourney that 10 teams participated in and raised close to $300 which will all go to the school and library to buy children books. Now $300 may not sound like a lot but for someone in my training community $300 is about the equivalent of a month´s salary so this a huge deal. We started the tourney on Saturday afternoon and then continued at 8 am Sunday morning played all day until the championship at 6 pm. We had a food/bake sale and was only able to pull that off with the help of the other volunteers and all the families who donated food and also had a raffle. All in all it was a great event for the community and all the volunteers and am happy to have been a part of it. Until next time everyone….Enjoy life!!

Mass e-mail from September

Me and some friends at Plaza Einstein in Panama City.

Greetings everyone from Panama City, Panama. I am in the capital city of Panama and am on my way to be travelling for the next two weeks out of my training site. Today also marks the one month anniversary of me being in Panama which is soooo crazy to think about. I am getting a little used to being in the country but still have so much to learn about the customs and culture of the country. But yeah I am travelling to the province of Veraguas in the central part of the country(its about a 4 hr bus ride) and believe it or not am sitting in an internet cafe watching college gameday with Kirk Herbstreit on the TV getting ready for the SC-Nebraska game. But while I am away for two weeks from my training site I will still be in training, my first week I have technical trainng and will be in the provincial capital of Veraguas which is Santiago . The second week I will also in the province of Veraguas and will be there for cultural training, supposedly the place where I will be is right on the beach so shouldnt be too bad. This week has been a big week for me because I finally found out my where my work site will be for the next two years. I will be in the province of Veraguas and living about 30 minutes from Santiago.My site has a population of 5000 people (which is one of the biggest sites of all the peace corps sites in Panama) and my job will be to work with a ´´multiple services´´ cooperative. The ´´multiple services´´ that my cooperative provides is that it manages two general stores in two different cities and also has a agricultural distribution factory that produces rice and beans or something(im not too sure on that) and my main responsibilities with these two biz will be to improve their internal management and organization. Its not beach front or anything unfortunately (well relatively speaking) but it doesnt take long to get to a beach wherever one is in panama, but im very excited about the opportunity and am happy where im going to be for the next two years. However, the province that I am living in does have some of the best surfing spots in the country and I am only a couple hours away from some of the most beautiful beaches in Panama.


Las Lajas Beach in the province of Chiriqui. I paid $5 to stay at some cabanas for the night on this beach!

For those of you that are thinking Andrew you´ve been sending pics of waterfalls and talking about surfing and the beach, aren´t you supposed to be working down there because it sounds like your having a bunch of fun out there. First of all, I am having a lot of fun, Panama is an amazing country. I´ve been hearing from all the current volunteers that we hit the jackpot in terms of peace corps assignments. Peace Corps Panama is one of the top performing posts in the world for many reasons, Panama is an amazing country to live in with lots to offer, good people, beautiful geography and wildlife, hard working smart support staff, one of the safest countries in Latin Anmerica, the food, and on and on. Everyday that I am here I am believing that story more and more. I really have hit the jackpot. But beyond all that Panama has to offer I am looking I am looking forward to working and have been extremely busy in training with very few days off. (Just to show you all how little I get to use the internet I started this e-mail yesterday in Panama City and was not able to finish in time and now am in the city of Santiago in the province of Veraguas which is 4 hrs away from Panama City but back to the e-mail).

The next two weeks when I am travelling around Panama I will still be in training and will be busy from 7am to 6 pm everyday just about in class. The place that I currently call home is about a which is a 40 minute bus ride from Panama City is where mostly all of my training has been taking place and I will call home until the end of October when I get sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. Before I go forward I just want to explain of what the Peace Corps is and what its objectives are around the world. Peace Corps has three main mission statements/goals which are 1) To help the peopleof interested countries in meeting their needs for trained men/women, 2) To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of other people´s served, 3) To help promote a better understanding of other people´s served on the part of all Americans. So just the fact that I am writing this e-mail to you all and sharing my experiences in Panama I am satisfying the 3rd goal and fullfilling part of my job in the peace corps.

Some kids during my visit in the province of Cocle about to play soccer.


However, I am not a ¨volunteer´¨ yet I am a trainee so I guess I have a little time to get to work. I´ve been here for a month( which I might add has been one of the longest months in my life because so much has happened and changed) and I have training 6 days a week mon-sat from 8-5 and have even had my Sundays filled a few times with things to do. An average day is that I spend half of my day in technical training learning things like accouting, management practices, marketing, writing biz plans, etc... and the other half of my day is spent in language/cultural training. Luckily I am in the advanced class(I guess I knew Spanish better than I thought I did but trust me I still need a lot of practice) and I don´t have formal langauge class anymore. So I know spend the other half of my day working on a community project which is organizing a softball tournament to raise funds for the school to buy more childrens books and computer equipment. I am very excited about this because very few people in my training group have the opportunity so soon to work on a project like this, plus its my first project in the communnity. I actually started this 2 weeks having been in the country so I´ve had some work to do so far. I can´t wait till I get to my actual site. (oh yeah this is now 3 days later from when I was in Santiago and 5 days from when I originally started this e-mail in Panama City. I am now in the city of David which is the 2nd biggest city in Panama and is in the province of Chiriqui which is about 8 hrs from Panama City its almost to Costa Rica. I get to go to the mountains of Cerra Punta tomorrow whicn I hear is amazing. I´ll put pics up next time.)

I also got to visit my eventual work site yesterday which I wasn´t expecting and didn´t know was going to happen when I began this e-mail. My place is going to be awesome, I think I may have the nicest place of all the volunteers in Panama. I will be in a middle class and pretty developed site relatively speaking for Panama of about 5,000 people. Its a nice, quiet place in between some hills and mountains in the interior of Panama. I met my host family who I will be living with when I first get there because there is a Peace Corps requirement that you live with a host family the first few monhs in my actual site(this is different from training which I have been mentioning too. I am referring right now to my site where I will be living in for two years. My host family is ok but what I am most excited to is where I will be moving into about end of Dec early January. I will be renting a big and nice 3 bedroom house with electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, a land line set up(which is the biggest luxury of all the things I just mentioned), front lawn/patio and big back yard with a cool pàtio. Basically I am hooked up and I am pretty sure I will have the nicest house of all the volunteers in Panama. But the best part about it is that I will be renting the house for a whopping $40 a month, which even for Panama is a deal. So those thinking about possibly visiting I will have a place for to stay and sleep. And I am only a few hrs away from some awesome tourist spots - beach, mountains, big city, etc... And remember everyone Carnival is in Feb or March which is the dry season and I think the cheapest time to come. Oh yeah stuff is soooo cheap here compared to the U.S. For example, I stayed at these awesome cabanas on the beach granted they are not the Mariott or Hyatt and are somewhat of roughing it well for me now its not really roughing it but either way these cabanas were right on the beach and it was only $5 a night. So yeah either way I am really looking forward to my new site and getting sworn in as an actual volunteer which is Oct. 25.


More pics of Las Lajas beach.


I´ve also been doing a fair amount of travelling throughout Panama recently which is part of our training. I´ve been out since last Saturday and won´t return to my training site till next Sunday. I´ve included pics of all that I have so far for you all to see. About two weeks ago I was in the province of Cocle which is in the central part of Panama visiting a current volunteer to go see their work and get an idea of what I might be doing in my site where I will ultimately be doing. It was kind of just to see what their daily life is like. It was for the weekend and on the last day we had a free day and we met up with about 30 people(about 15 current volunteers and 15 trainees) to relax at the beach all day and night. That was the cabanas I was referring to. I took a 4 hr bus ride in the opposite direction just to go to the beach just to drive back about 7 hrs on Monday morning to head back to Panama City. It was definately worth the extra time and money. I also had a great time about 1 week and half ago with my host family because they took me all around Panama City and showed me around. We first went to Amador Causeway which is like a big boardwalk on the ocean that connects to some islands(I took pics for you all to see) and you can also see ships in the harbor and boats coming into the Panama Canal.



Amador Causeway.




They also took me to some old ruins in Panama City that had some great views of the city, and also took me to various houses throughout the city where their family lived.


There was also a soccer match between Mexico and Panama that day and Mexico won so that was kind of fun. All in all it was a good time. Real quick my host family is real cool. They feed me well, they are friendly and hospitable, they let me do whatever I want, and all in all seem to be good people. I will miss them when I move out at the end of October. But thats all for now this e-mail has taken me a week to complete. Thanks for all those that made it to the end of the e-mail. I could keep going but got to stop at some point and I will have more to share soon. Also thanks for those that responded to my last e-mail and please keep them coming because I really sppreciate it a lot. It may sound liek I am having a great time and awesome adventure out here, which I am. I am having an amazing experience and am so glad that I finally decided to do something I´ve wanted to do for a long time but its definately not easy all the time because being away from everything I know and love, including my family friends can be difficult sometimes. So please send me a message when you can and let me know what you all are doing too. So thats all for now, take care everyone whatever you all are doing, follow your dreams as well, and I will talk with you soon.

P.S. The last thing I forgot to mention which was pretty cool was that I got to meet the U.S. ambassador to Panama about 2 weeks ago because he came for the day to our training site in Santa Clara to meet all of us trainees and he will also be at out swear in at the end of October. And I guess we do have some loose afiliation with the embassy and will have some diplomatic priviledges not diplomatic immunity but will receive a diplomatic identification.

Group 60 Community Economic Development group pic during training.

I haven´t been keeping blog up to date

Sorry folks didn´t notice that Peace Corps had put my blog up on their site of all Panama blogs and wasn´t keeping it up tp date because its a hassle but since I know that I used this site as a reference before joining I will post my past emails as my blogs and try from now on to keep the blog up to date. I have been in Panama four months now and have been at my actual site for 2 months and am having a great time. If you are reading this and considering Peace Corps Panama this blog is for you, and my friends and family of course too.