Orientation Ends Tomorrow... Host Families Here We Come!

Hola from Panamá! We arrived safe and sound on Wednesday, after a very long day of traveling (beginning at 3 am). Orientation began as soon as we arrived, and Thursday and Friday were full of meetings, interviews/assessments, and information sessions. It has been a long few days! I know all of you are anxious for some pictures, so I will go ahead and show you a little bit of what I have been doing this week!

This is the Panamá Canal, which you can see from the entrance to the area where we have been staying for orientation. In the distance, you can see one of the political ad campaign signs for the upcoming election, which will take place next weekend.

This is the villa where we have been staying since we arrived in Panamá. There are 5 of us living here; this is me with Mary, another TEA volunteer and my current roommate. We have been trying to soak up every moment of free WiFi while we are here!

This is the sunrise from our villa the other morning. Pretty much all you can hear in the morning are millions of birds chirp

ing. Some of the other volunteers have been waking up to go bird watching early... obviously, I have not joined at 5:45 am!

This is one of the two buses that took us to the bus terminal/mall in Panamá City last night. We had dinner and then were able to

 shop for whatever last minute things we might have forgotten from home before we head out tomorrow. I bought a tote bag -

 hard for all of you to believe, I know!

Today we had a visit to a current PCV's site that is a TEA volunteer. It was an indigenous community about 1 1/2 hours from Panamá City - 1 hour by car plus a 30 minute boat ride. We took two boats, and the one I was on broke down 1/2 way there... imagine that!

But, the scenery on the ride was beautiful... TONS of banana trees!

                                     

This was the small, man-made cut through that the people made for their new home 2 years ago. This is where our rescue boat came to get us! Ha!

We finally made it to the village, which is a group of about 70 people who decided to create their own area 2 years ago. They are trying to improve their tourism and requested the current PCV to help them.

This is a typical hut in the site. Families live together in these. They do not have any running water or electricity. They are made from trees in the jungle; the volunteer we visited said his hut took 2 months to build and not a drop of rain comes through the roof! 

This is our TEA group! There are 19 of us (48 of us came to Panamá together, but there are 3 sectors: Tourism & English, Community Economic Conservation, and Sustainable Agriculture), but our trainers and the current volunteer are in this picture also. We have a GREAT group!

Yes, I was brave a held the spider monkey! But only for as long as it took to take this picture!

 

This is one of the precious little boys in the village. They were anxious to play with everyone, followed us on our tour around the area, and watched us curiously as we sat under this meeting area for discussions and a typical lunch (fish, rice, and lentils... I only had lentils, but they were good!). The children in this village have to take a 30 minute boat ride to school everyday, followed by a 15-20 minute bus ride - rain or shine! 

All in all, these last few days have been great! It has been nice meeting new people and learning more about what we will be doing as PCVs. Tomorrow, we will depart in the morning to meet our host families, who we will stay with for the next 10 weeks during training. TEA volunteers will be in Santa Clara. Training will be long and exhausting, I am sure, but I looking forward to it! I am not sure how my internet connection will be starting tomorrow, but I will continue to do my best to update as I can! Love to all... wherever you are!