Day 70

March 20, 2012

I have been in my site now for four days, and tomorrow is my birthday. I would say that this is probably my saddest and loneliest birthday all alone in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language. But I’m not sure I can say that; this maybe the largest, craziest party I will ever have. The town has planned quite a surprise party—I know this because several people have let it slip, and if this many people have let the secret slip I can only guess how many people know about the party.

To catch everyone up: 

(I keep hoping that I’ll get better at this, but I haven’t yet. The good news is that I found the Internet café today, and it is relatively cheap. So I should have regular access to the Internet by the time I get this post out)

After the site visit, I caught a bus home right in front of my house and spent the day in the largest mall in Panama picking up a few essentials, chocolate and Pringles. When we got back to Los Mortales, we had a free day to do laundry, pack up the rest of our stuff and rest up. The next day we had our despidida (which is a goodbye party) in town. It went really nice. We had arroz con pollo (rice and chicken, Panamanian party food), a slide show, and passed out certificates to all the families.

We headed out the next day at 5am in a Diablo Rojo (Diablos Rojos are old American school busses turned Panamanian public transport, decked out with strings of Christmas lights, music and crazy paint jobs) on our way to the old army base and Peace Corps office. We had our last couple of days of training, Spanish interviews (which, according to my results, I haven’t improved in since I got here. I hope this isn’t the best I’m going to get), and tied up loose ends. The PC let us all stay in the villas on the base. We had such a good time hanging out together, talking English.

We swore in as official Peace Corps Volunteer on Wednesday. It was a nice ceremony. We all got dressed up and headed to the Canal Museum for the ceremony. We sang both national anthems, listened to some nice and moving speeches, and then (best part) ate appetizers including real cheese, which we don’t get much of down here. 

From the ceremony, the volunteers in my group headed to a hostel on the beach. We had such a good time. We rented out the whole house, which was right on the beach. Some of the volunteers even took over the kitchen and made the best meal that I have had in a loooong time.

From the beach, I headed to my site on the other side of the canal. I only missed my buss stop by a little bit. I got off in front of the bar, which gave some of the drunk men a surprise. It didn’t take them too long to realize who the gringa in the middle of nowhere was. My first day was a Sunday, which meant that not much was going on, so I stopped by my community guide’s house for a couple of hours. Monday, I got up and headed to the school, where I was sent home because I was sick. I spent the rest of the day just hanging out and reading some of the books the PC gave us. Tuesday (today), I headed back to the school where several representatives from the Panamanian version of the EPA met me. They were all very nice, and they even knew that my birthday was the next day, and that the community was having a party for me (news gets around in Panama, or I’m just that important).

9:40pm, way past my bedtime…