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.
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.
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