Week of Cleanliness

Hey guys, I'm back! I've been enjoying my last "Week of Cleanliness" while it lasts, because after this actual showers are going to be a luxury. When I got back to Santa Clara I took like a 20 minute shower just to completely scrub down. I will be bucket-bathing for the most part after this, which really isn't that bad unless you have to walk back to the house through the mud to crawl into bed. Even though I kept cleaning my feet with my wet wipes right before I went to bed, my feet were constantly dirty and I hate sleeping with dirty feet. Oh well. I guess I will get used to smelling like a campfire and my feet will always look really tan.

Anyhoo, the last few days have been a little strange. We found out just before we left for our site visit that we were going to be swearing in early on account of the new Panamanian government taking office and everyone was going to be too busy for us. So we were sworn in on Friday instead of yesterday, and we had a bunch of anticlimactic training to sit through. The swear in took place at the ambassador's house, and the vice president of Panama was there. It was his last official business with America. Plus they had two tables full of yummy toothpick foods, and there was a severe lack of rice and yuca. It was nice not to have to gorge myself with starch for once. I got to eat real cheese that isn't in a plastic wrapper! I like cheese.

I heard that Panama is the fourth largest consumer of rice per capita on the planet, and I believe it. I really don't know how they can stuff so much in their stomachs and they keep expecting me to be able to perform this same miracle. I told them that in America rice costs more money so we don't eat as much, which is kind of true. But not really. I keep getting asked questions like how much money people make in America, and I tell them that we do make a lot more money than they do but everything costs so much more that it pretty much evens out. I was explaining to my host mom in Chichica about the housing crisis and what caused it because we were talking about costs and economy and stuff. Their economy is under stress right now as well because of our economy, and I was trying to explain what is going on with my limited vocabulary.

I really need to learn a lot more words. I got the results of my last Spanish interview and I finally raised up a level, to Intermediate High. Apparently if I would have spoken more quantity and used my verbs more consistently I would have been moved up to Advanced Low. But I am not a very loquacious person to begin with, so that may have something to do with my consistant underachievement.

We've been back at Ciudad del Saber these last few days, and we had a farewell party in Santa Clara for our host families. It rained the whole time and we didn't have enough food for everyone but it was still kind of fun. Now I am going back to Santa Clara, while most people are heading over the Santa Clara Beach. I don't feel like partying on the beach watching people get drunk, sounds kind of boring. So I am going to relax with my host mom for a couple days. It's funny that I relate more to a 62 year old Panamanian grandmother than I do with my American peers. Not sure what to think about that. . .

I also need to buy a few more things, like rubber boots and a blanket. Yesterday we got a little set of drawers with a bunch of office supplies for teaching English, which is really nice but also quite bulky to add to my already mountainous pile of stuff to carry back to Chichica. I really should have taken the guitar last time, but it was already so heavy that I was worried it would be too much. And now I am worried again, but I'll make it.

Well, I will probably be able to write more before I leave on Friday, and after that I'm not sure how consistantly I will be able to post updates. So we'll see about that. Oh, also I lost my brand new cell phone the day after I bought it. I hadn't even made a single call with it either. So now I need to buy another one, which $30 is a considerable amount of money in the comarca. That could feed me for at least 2-3 weeks. Oh well. Anyway, talk to you later.