Impressions of Panama

It is hard for me to believe that in such a short amount of time I have seen and experienced so many amazing things. I decided to put up some of my favorite images of my Panama to give everyone a better sense of what I have been lucky to see so far.

Here in Panama, it isn´t a real piñata unless you put a ton of flour in it. This was a party we put on for families who hosted us for culture week in a community in Bocas called Valle de Risco.

During training we spent a week up in the mountains near the Costa Rican border. I was beautiful and reminded me a lot of being in the mountains of California. Every morning was crisp and it smelled like pine trees. The area is home to most of the coffee produced in Panama. The hills are covered with coffee bushes and the photo on the right is a small part of the Cafe Duran plantation, one of the largest coffee producers in Panama.

We had a free weekend during training and went to the beach. A few of us woke up early on our last morning there and went for an early morning swim. Below is a picture post swim of Dorine, me and Lisa. They are two great friends I have made here in Panama.


We were lucky enough to tour a family owned and operated coffee farm called Finca Hartman. They are a small operation that produces very high quality coffee for smaller buyers all over the world including the US, Europe and Japan. It was very interesting to see that process from start to finish. They also did a "cupping" for us, which was equivalent to a wine tasting but for coffee.

I hope this gave everyone a idea of where I am and the wonderful things I have been seeing. I can´t wait to take photos of my site and put them up for eveyone to see.

This is a photo was also taken while I was in the mountains near the Costa Rican border. We were watching as the sun was setting over the border and a storm was rolling in. A few minutes later the the valley below was filled with fog.

I can´t believe it is already October...

PHOTOS!!!! I have finally gotten around to posting some for you all to see. I hope you all enjoy! Left is a photo of our Bocas crew. From top left is Kaitlyn, Brian, Joe (the volunteer we visited), Old David, Ray, from bottom left Jesse, Ben and me.

This last month has flown by to say the least. We are entering the last few weeks of training and you can feel the nervous excitment in the group. The end of September was full of lots of travel, fun, and of course hard work. We spent two weeks away from our training site, Santa Clara for both cultural and tech training. For culture week everyone from my group who will be living in the Bocas Del Toro province traveled to say with volunteer who lived in the area. We stayed with indigenous host families and learned a ton about the history, culture, people and agencies in the area. Some highlights of the culture week:

• visiting an organic cacao cooperative


• hiking four hours uphill in the mud to see how the aquduct system worked and then taking in the view of all of the islands of Bocas from the top of a mountain...while drinking fresh pipa (a variety of coconut) juice.


• trying to peel green bananas in the dark with a machete


• visiting a cacao farm, eating fresh cacao (tastes like a green apple) and planting banana trees.
  

This is a picture of the volunteer´s porch. It was a sweet house and I can only hope I am as lucky.

Me learning how to make a Chacra bag from the local womens artisans group. The bag is a traditional woven bag made to carry firewood, bananas or whatever else needed to be hauled around. Men and women also carry them as a purse.

The photos above are a few photos from the town we stayed in, Valle Risco. all the house we pretty similar. Wood with a palm or penca roof. Most of the houses were on stilts and the families hung out underneath in hamocks or on the concrete floors. The town itself was in a beautiful valley and every morning, there was mist in the trees. Our host families there were really hospitable and despite all of us getting sick in one way or another, we had a positive experience.

Technical week was also great. We stayed in a coffee producing area that was high up in the mountains. It was actually cold and we got to sleep with big comforters everynight and wear jackets! Quite a change from what we live in everyday so that was nice. It felt like fall weather on the central coast. We gave several presentations in spanish on marketing, accounting and also taught a lesson in the elementary school. Needless to say we all came home pretty tired but felt accomplished.

We are all working hard at our language skills and this coming week they will be put to the test when we visit our sites for the first time. Needless to say I am pumped to visit my community when I will be living and working for the next two years. I am tired of feeling a homeless so it will be awesome to finally picture myself settled. I will post some photos of that when I get a chance.

Thanks again for all the emails and comments. I love reading them so please keep them coming!