And so it goes. . .

Cerro Algodón in the morning


The road heading toward the Cuatros Pinos neighborhood in Chichica


Rubén, on our way to the finca


Rubén chopping a path through the forest at his farm


After-school activities in the pouring rain: the band, the baton twirlers, the little marcher girls that are like a mix between a really lame drill team and beauty queens, and soccer practice


Girl scout activity, painting with watercolors on Cerro Plata, the hill above my house




I can see my house from here! (the big one in the middle)


Loli painting a mural on my door


So, the big news for this post is that I am an official novia. Mile and I decided that we are now boyfriend and girlfriend. We have been talking up at the high school and I gave him my phone number, and he began texting me. One thing in his favor is that he always asks me if I want him to do something first and asked me if I wanted him to text me (unlike Mr. Stalker that somehow got ahold of my new cell phone number again and sent me 17 missed calls the other day). Anyway we had our first official date, which consisted of me showing up at yet another queen pageant at the school, but it got started three hours late and when it did start, it was the same thing as always and we were both bored out of our minds. We had already decided to head back down to my house afterward, so we left early. It was pretty funny, I closed two strategic windows but left the doors and one window open, so the neighbors kept coming by to watch. Encarnaciona sent Meli down with a bowlful of tomatoes at a key moment, and you could see Orlandito´s eyes watching us through a hole in a curtain. Anyway, he asked me what I thought about us hooking up and I said I thought it was fine.

A little bit about him. He is currently a chemistry teacher at the high school but wants to go to Germany to get his PhD next year. He has done research in Germany and Sweden, and apparently speaks German even better than he speaks English, which isn´t too bad. I get a feeling that he´s had a lot of girlfriends but seems pretty sincere about getting to know me better, and he definitely has a different perspective on life than other Panamanian men even if he can´t help his latin lover-ness.

It never rains but it pours- I also had another "campo date" with another guy named Rubén, which consisted of us going to visit his new farm that is a two hour walk away from Chichica up in Alto Estrella. I didn´t really think about the fact that it was probably a date until after I told him I would go. When we got there, he made a half-veiled proposal for me to stay here in Panama with him at his farm, but I told him that I intended to return to the U.S. Then when I got bit like ten times on one elbow by some bug, he told me that he wanted to turn into a bug so he could find out why I must taste so sweet. ¡Alla la vida! I probably made a mistake in inviting him to go with me and my friends on our hike to Barú Volcano because that probably implies more interest than I have, even though in our culture it is perfectly normal to invite a guy as just a friend. I just thought that he would have been fun to hike with and would have enjoyed it and besides his dad lives in Boquete where we will be starting from, but even though I don´t think he´ll end up coming anyway it was probably careless to invite him.

Also, this morning on the chiva, the car had stopped and there was a guy standing on the side of the road. He caught a glimpse of my face through the opening at the front but there was another guy sitting in front of me, so he said "¡Qué muñequita cargas hoy! ¿Mueve la cara muchacho, no quiero ver a ti!" (What a doll you´re carrying today! Move your face kid, I don´t want to look at you!). Such is life as a gringa in Panama, it doesn´t even matter if you´re not that pretty.

Anyway, changing the subject. Ok, maybe it´s actually still the same subject. We began the sex ed portion of my weekly class, and Meredith came to help my out with the gender roles vs. sex lesson. We went to the library to supposedly prepare for the lesson, but we just ended up being all girly and giggling over the text messages that Mile had sent me. So we gave the lesson, which was going well until suddenly a professor came and told us that we would have to change classrooms because they were going to show a movie in the lab that we were using. So we got kicked out of the one classroom that had a semi-insulated roof and was sort of protected from the cacophony that was coming from band practice, and so I had to yell for the rest of the lesson to be heard above the rain and drums. I have a can that the kids can put questions in to be answered, and as I expected this time I got quite a few. Next week: anatomy! Man will they be embarrased! Guarav is coming to help me out with that one, and after that he will walk on over to Dan´s site who is my second-closest volunteer, and I would have joined him in the little excursion but I have a date with Mile in David.

Other work news that isn´t new. Tourism meeting attendance was 3, hence the project is pretty much officially doomed because they will not be able to take advantage of money that they need to apply for right away before Proyecto Ngäbe-Buglé shuts down, and also the free English lessons that I would have offered. But I guess that is their problem, not mine. I am going to see if the English teachers show up to class tomorrow, if not then I´m done with them too because. Everyone realizes that they are being irresponsible and always complain about the irresponsiblity of everyone else, but they don´t do anything to improve it. So if people don´t want to work with me then I will just work on my own projects that may have nothing to do with my official program but whatever. That´s the beauty of Peace Corps, I can do whatever I want!

Last night I walked back from the tourism meeting in the rain and wind, and was immediately accosted by Loli who wanted to know what was for dinner, and wanted to paint a mural on my door. We were soon joined by Lito, who also wanted to paint a mural. So I made enough lentil soup and rice for all of us as they painted (Loli painted my house in Utah, along with the river in Utah and the Utah flag), and then the little ungrateful brat Loli informed me that I needed to give them coffee or chicha or at least tea, which I ignored. Then Lito asked me if I could write his English homework, because he needed to write a speech about the Canal and in spite of the fact that he has been studying English in school for years he doesn´t know what the word "the" means. So he wanted me to do it for him, to which I told him that if I had to do the homework for everyone who asked me to, I would be doing homework all day and nobody would be learning anything. I told him that even if he could do part of it himself I would help him with the rest, but he said he couldn´t even do that. He was mad at me, but I don´t care. It´s not my fault that the school system is crappy and then the people don´t even try with what little they have.

On Saturday I had planned a little hike up to the hill above my house for a girl scout activity because we haven´t had one for a while. Apparently Loli was really excited because she came to wake me up because supposedly it was almost time to go and I needed to get ready (it was 7:30 and we were scheduled to leave at 10:00, but at least somebody wanted to do something early for a change). So we shouted for Feli to come, and we went and looked for Yuri, Negra, and Albania. Albania didn´t want to go so she stayed home, but Yuri and Negra were excited too. In fact, Negra kept saying that she didn´t want to go home, she just wanted to stay up there and play, and then asked me several times when we were going to go back up there. We painted landscapes with watercolors (drinking part of the water I brought for the paints because none of us brought water and we were all parched) and then we played in the grass.

Anyway, I guess that is about all for now. Keep me posted on what´s going on back home, I always like to hear from people even if I´m really bad at communicating personally with everyone. Later!

Here is a video of the kids practicing for the parades that will be happening all throughout November. Don´t you wish that all your after-school activities happened in the pouring rain?


Me and the girls playing on Cerro Plata. I am "hunting" conejo pintado, which is a small mammal that is extremely endangered and also extremely delicious (so I hear)