Monday, January 31, 2011

Volunteer Visit

For the past 4 days we all got sent to go visit current volunteers in different parts of the country. Most people were sent in pairs but I got sent alone to visit Sarah and Sean, a married couple who live in a very small community about an hour and a half away from Panama City. They came to Panama last April. The volunteer visit was very well timed - I think we all needed a day off from training. It was awesome to see exactly the life I signed up for. They have no electricity, no water, a very simple but awesome life. Sarah is an English teaching volunteer (though her program is slightly different than mine) and Sean is an environmental conservation volunteer. It is summer now so I got to see the summer camp they are holding for the kids on Friday. I also got to see a typical Panamanian teacher's style and teaching methods on Saturday because she was having biweekly Saturday classes about various topics during the summer. That was very interesting because once I get to my site I'm going to be working side by side with Panamanian teachers who might have totally different methods of teaching than we are used to in the States. On Sunday we hiked an hour up a mountain to see an amazingly beautiful view (of course I didn't bring my camera) and simultaneously to get cell phone service. It was a great few days. Training has been so hectic and busy and exhausting, it was nice to see what we actually signed up for: the life of a volunteer. There will be a lot of down time, time to relax, to read, to do whatever.

My visit to Sarah and Sean definitely included some classic Peace Corps moments. One day we got served cow stomach for lunch. I love trying weird stuff like that and ate it all but definitely wouldn't eat it again. Also, they don't have electricity, so at night we sat around with candles but it was still pretty dark. One night I went to take a drink from my mug and felt something tickle my lips. I was like, oh whatever, it's probably just a little bug. I got my headlamp and looked inside and it was a spider. Still alive. With two legs missing. Which means I probably ate them. Awesome. Also, their area had severe flooding and landslides in December, so their water hasn't been working since then. Which means I haven't showered in five days. I never thought I'd long for my usual bucket bath. I really didn't mind though. How can you complain about landslides messing up your access to water when they also completely washed away some people's homes? All Sarah and Sean have to do is walk a few minutes to a well, fill up two buckets of water, and carry them home. It reminded me of the old Peace Corps joke: An optimist looks at a glass of water and says it's half full. A pessimist looks at a glass of water and says it's half empty. A Peace Corps Volunteer looks at a glass of water and says, "Yeah, I could take a bath in that." Yesterday I got to swim in the river which was an amazing turquoise color and was really fun and was the cleanest I got. Sarah and Sean's life is exactly what I pictured when I pictured Peace Corps. It's exactly what I want for the next two years.


PS: Some awesome things to send me that I can use in my classroom: bingo, uno, twister, books in English and Spanish (they love juevos verdes con jamon), coloring books, markers.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Chickens Climb Trees... And Other Facts About My New Life

So, the other day I came home from class around 5:30 as usual. Normally my host mom has a plate of dinner waiting for me and everyone's talking and milling about the house, but this day no one was inside. I heard voices out back so I went out there and everyone was standing looking up at a tree. Deivy (pronounced like Davey), who is 12, was throwing rocks at the tree. I thought he was throwing them at the chickens in the tree... that's a pretty weird sight, right? Do chickens in the States fly from tree branch to tree branch? I thought it was pretty mean to throw rocks at chickens, but no one else seemed to think so, so I didn't say anything. It turns out that Deivy was throwing the rocks at the fruit in the tree, trying to knock it down so we could eat it. It had nothing to do with the chickens.

So in case you haven't guessed, we've moved in with our host families. And in case you also haven't guessed, there are some awkward encounters sometimes (like what we're throwing rocks at) when I don't understand the language all the time. My family is awesome though. My host mom, or Panamom, Señora Carmen, is 66. She has about four teeth so it's difficult to understand her sometimes, but she is warm and kind and ferociously protective of me. Her daughter, also named Carmen, lives in the house with her eight year old son and one year old daughter Nicole. Sister Carmen is 28, always makes sure I'm included in conversations, asks me questions... she's great. Little Nicole is adorable though hard to understand (like any one year old in English would be) and she has taken to climbing into my lap a lot. There is also Deivy, another grandson of Señora Carmen, who lives with us but his parents don't. Don't ask me to try to explain Panamanian family dynamics; it would take me years to figure it all out.

My house is a simple concrete structure with a tin roof. I have my own room though the door is just a sheet. The bathroom is a simple latrine outside a few feet away from the house and my shower is a bucket of water outside. (I'm actually liking the bucket baths. They're quite refreshing.) We have electricity but don't really use it that much except for the TV.

Right now we are trainees. We are not technically Peace Corps Volunteers until we finish 10 weeks of training and get sworn in at the end of March. Training is very intensive and I feel like my brain is about to explode by the end of every day with the amount of everything we are learning. From 8 to 12 I have Spanish class with 3 other girls who are the same level as me. (The results from the interview I previously spoke of: I got placed in the 4th level of 9 with 9 being totally fluent, so I'm at the lower end of the intermediate level.) I feel very good about where I was placed, especially since I haven't taken a Spanish class in 4 years. I am definitely appreciating my quality education though - it's amazing how much is coming back to me without me even thinking about it. In order to be sworn in as volunteers we have to be at the 5th level so I think I will be fine. We get tested again in 3 weeks and I am hoping I will be at the 5th level by then. So from 8 to 12 I have Spanish class at a house 5 minutes away from mine. Class revolves more around speaking than writing or grammar. Then I walk home for lunch. From 1 to 5 our entire group of 42 gets together for technical classes. Since we're in the Teaching English program, our technical classes involve learning about the Panamanian educational system, the Ministry of Education whom we will be working closely with, and specific ESL teaching techniques and methodologies. Starting next week I will only have 2 hours of tech class and then I will have an additional 2 hours of Spanish class in the afternoon.

I usually get home around 5:30, eat dinner, and hang out with my Panafamily. I'm slightly concerned about the level of my emotional attachment to the novelas (soap operas) that are on every night. Deivy also likes to watch The Simpsons which I love because it's really slow and basic vocabulary and I understand almost every word.

I got my first hug from Señora Carmen the other day. She was bragging to our neighbors how good of an eater I am. I keep trying to diplomatically ask for less food on my plate and explain that I don't want to get fat. But she told me that it's okay to get fat, I shouldn't look like Barbie. Thanks, Panamom.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

In Panama!

I've only been in Panama for 48 hours but it feels like every minute has been jam-packed. We are staying at la Ciudad de Saber (City of Knowledge), an old American army base that is now used by various agencies and organizations for offices and temporary sleeping barracks. It is right across the street from the canal. We can see big ships gliding by.

Yesterday we spent all day in training sessions. We really hit the ground running and I'm very impressed with how well organized the Peace Corps is as an organization. Aside from all the acronyms they use. Seriously, listening to two Peace Corps people talk might be worse than listening to two doctors talk. And the fact that every male Peace Corps staff member has a beard... is that a requirement or something?

We had language interviews in the afternoon which were slightly daunting but I thought I did okay on mine - I had very low expectations for myself. The point of the interviews was just to place us in the right Spanish class. I'm not in the lowest or even the second lowest class, so I guess that's good. I've always been a visual learner and felt the need to see a word in a book or on a blackboard before I learned it but I really like the small, conversational Spanish classes here where we are forced to speak as much as possible. When I hear a word I don't know, I'll write it down phonetically and ask what it means or look it up later. It feels like a great way to learn so far; I guess we'll see how successful I am. I am finding that I understand everything that I hear, I'm just having trouble speaking and expressing myself. I think this is a normal level to be at, but I just happen to be in a group of a lot of fluent speakers. I'm also at the point where not only is my Spanish not enough, but my English is actually getting worse, so I can't express myself clearly in either language. It's really frustrating. Today I actually said "Yes of that I need also." In English.

Today we went to visit a current Peace Corps volunteer at her site about an hour and a half away. (I was really excited when I saw on the schedule that we didn't leave until 10am, but then realized that we had two hours of Spanish class first.) I was really excited to get out of the classroom and actually see Panama. It is GORGEOUS. Stupid gringos, we all got a little sunburnt, but we had a great day walking around her town and seeing all of the projects that this current volunteer (she came last year) is doing. And her house had water and electricity, which probably got our hopes up a little too high.

We move in with our host families tomorrow! We stay with a family for the next ten weeks of training in a community not too far from Panama City. After ten weeks of training, we'll be sworn in as volunteers (right now we're aspirantes, trainees) and we will move to our sites for the next two years. Right now it's time to concentrate on working really hard on our Spanish and our teaching skills! I've never slept so well at night. This is all pretty exhausting. But it's a nice exhaustion because it's from learning, learning, learning all day long.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Grounded in DC

Ah. I guess I am learning why Peace Corps emphasizes the need for flexibility and patience in their applicants. We were supposed to come to Washington D.C. on Tuesday the 11th for one day of "staging" (basically just ice breakers and logistics) and then fly to Panama on Wednesday the 12th. Thanks to the snow, our flight got cancelled. 40 people is a lot to reroute, so it took them awhile to figure it out, but I'm really impressed with the Peace Corps staff who have managed all of this chaos. They got us all on flights to Panama but unfortunately they had to split us up so 18 went this morning and the other 24 of us are going tomorrow. It was kind of weird because they did it alphabetically by last name so I should have been in the group that left today but Fried was at the end, after they Ys. Apparently I have a silent Z in my name? So now some people are jokingly calling me Zried. Gotta roll with the punches, and I didn't mind being shafted to the second group. The whole group is awesome. I don't know when else the word "awesome" is actually appropriate, but it is here. It's so fun to be in such a big group of people all my age (there are only or two older than 24, and by older than 24 I mean like 28) and we're having a blast getting to know each other. We are overwhelmingly female (only 12 boys) and all 40 of us are English Teaching volunteers. There is also a group of 40 or 50 health volunteers going to Nicaragua who have been stuck here as well, but they are also getting out of here tomorrow.

They gave us a free day in D.C. yesterday which was really nice - I hit up 3 Smithsonian museums and tried to walk around to see some of the monuments but it was really COLD. (Lesson #1: Even if you think you'll only be in D.C. for one day, bring a damn coat.) Today I guess they didn't want us to lose too much time doing the training we would be doing in Panama so we had a full day of classes about safety and security, "the role of the volunteer in development," and Spanish. I was really nervous for the Spanish classes, but they actually went really well. The first session they threw a pretty difficult short story at us to read and interpret but the second session was just talking and playing Jeopardy and fun stuff. I was surprised that I could understand everything that was being said and could follow and take notes in Spanish, though I don't have the confidence yet to speak as much as I'd like. But I'm sure that will change once I'm in Panama. It seems like most people in the group have a higher level of fluency except for two girls who are close to beginners. I like to situate myself in between a native speaker and a beginner so I can get help but feel good about myself at the same time. A good strategy, I think. I'm not too worried about being near the bottom of the spectrum, though. I'm sure once we get to Panama I'll have no choice but to increase my fluency. Sink or swim!

Monday, January 3, 2011

Time Flies

Somehow I went from "Oh my God, January is sooo far away" to "Oh my God, I leave in a week!" Where did all that time go? It's very different packing this time compared to packing for a year in Africa. For one thing, I have to actually look presentable while teaching in Panama. For another, my mother will probably be moving during my two years away, so instead of just leaving all my stuff lying around her house like I did last time, I have to actually pack it all up in some sort of organized way. I humbly bow down to the gods of The Container Store. All of my wordly possessions fit into three of their containers. Except the one drawerful that is going to Panama with me. (My mantra: Always, always, always underpack.)

I'm a mess of emotions right now and I don't even know how to describe what I'm feeling. Mostly excitement. On New Year's Eve everyone went around the room and said the highlight of their year -- I know, it sounds corny, but someone just suggested it spontaneously and it was actually really cool. Person after person went and I kept thinking, What am I going to say? Quadbiking in the Namibian desert? Beating up my mugger in Kenya? Riding motorcycles in Uganda? Dancing with the Maasai on the beaches of Zanzibar? Swimming in the Nile? Riding elephants in Zimbabwe? The day we spent at Victoria Falls? The many friendships I made along the way? Finally it was my turn and without even knowing what I was going to say, my mouth opened and said, "Finally getting the mail and opening my invitation to the Peace Corps." So even though I'm a nervous and anxious and excited ball all rolled into one, I am so happy that it's finally here. I'm finally going into the Peace Corps!