Training!

First off, thank you all so much for the emails and comments! We have very limited access to email, so please keep writing even if I don´t write back right away. It is great to hear what is going on back home and to know that all of you are reading my blog :)

So we moved into our training community this past Sunday which was very exciting. It is a beautiful place and the families have made us all feel at home. It is relatively small and is set in an area with beautiful rolling hills. There is only one payphone in town (which doesn´t often work) and no one has internet or landlines. My host family is awesome and they have had five previous trainees at their house. My mom´s name is Edna, the dad is Eric and they have two daughters, Genesis who is 15 and Erika who is 11. Genesis reminds me a lot of my own sister so it has been a nice reminder of home. They also have a bunch of chickens, rooster, 2 dogs and a pig. Everyone has electicity and running water (although it isn´t always running). Most houses have latrines but a few people have American style indoor flush toilets. You can imagine they are pretty popular :) All of the houses are made of concrete with tin-type roofs. The weather is really intense and getting used to the humidity is hard. I have come to love my cold showers.

Everyday I have technical class from 8-12 then language from 1-5. Technical class is only with people in the CED group and focuses teaching us about the agencies we will be working with. My language class is really intense and the approach the spanish here is total immersion. I am in an intermediate group with two others and our teacher only speaks spanish. I can´t believe how much I have improved in just the last week alone. The cool thing is that all of our classes take place at a house in the community. Our "classroom" for tech class is in the backyard of someones home and my language class meets on the porch of another host family. It is definitly different but amazing. We are going out on our own next week to stay with a volunteer which should be an experience to say the least. I miss all of you and will update again soon!

Bienvenido a Panama!

I am sorry it has taken me so long to put up my first post! I intend to try and put up a new entry at least every couple of week. I left home a week ago tomorrow and it feels like so much has happened I don't know where to start. We arrived in Panama on Wednesday and have been staying in an area outside the city called "Ciudad de Saber" or City of Knowledge. It is an old US government "city" that was turned over to the Panamanian government when they gained control over the canal in 1999. It houses the Peace Corp office as well as several other NGO's and US govenment organizations such as USAid and USDA. It is right across the street from the canal, which is awesome. It is not that hot here, but the humidity is intense so we are all adjusting. There are 35 people in our group and are divided into 2 sectors, community economic development (CED) and environmental health (EH). A lot of people are in their early 20's, but there are a good amout of people around my age/ early 30's as well. We also have two married couples who are in there late 20's and two guys who are in their 50's. So far everyone is awesome and we are having a great time getting to know each other.

The staff here is incredible, both the US staff and local Panamanians. Each group, CED and EH has a project manager, plus we have a country director, medical officer....the list goes on and on. Our project manager, Zach, is so inspiring and did his service here in Panama in a very remote are of the country. We have all been up at 6:30 am every morning and in seminars by 8 am. We have gotten vaccines, taken swim tests, learned how to make flotation devices out of our jeans, taken language interviews, medical interviews, been debriefed by the US embassy,...needless to say we are being throughly prepared for our sites and any possible issues that will arise over the next two years. This morning we all went out to a current volunteer site to see an example of where we could be placed in the next two, which was great. I will say more about this later when I have time. Tomorrow, we are leaving to move in with our host families for training which will be an experience to say the least. I could keep writing, but I have to go pack up. It has only been one week and already this experience is more than I could have imagined and it is only going to get better.