Feliz Año Nuevo!

A lot has happened since I last posted: I celebrated Panama’s Mes de la Patria, Mother’s Day, and a graduation, had a fellow PCV visit my site, survived 72 hours of nonstop rain, visited Chicago, and made it back to Panamá.

November is Panama’s Mes de la Patria; the month is littered with holidays celebrating various independence days and is a time to really show national pride. The biggest holidays are November 3 (Independence from Colombia) and November 4 (Celebration of National Symbols). My school hosts a huge activity celebrating November 3, so the 2^nd we spend all days preparing. We cook Johnny Cakes (coconut bread) for every single person in the community and all the students, plus prepare all the food for the big lunch. I helped out a little, but was mainly the cheerleader and moral support (because my gente are really good at what they do and I am slow). It was great, until the evening. Once it was dark, we continued to work under the light of one single bulb and suddenly something stung me on the neck! It was dark and I just flicked it off, but instantly knew it was something more sinister than a mosquito.  My gente deliberated and decided that it (most likely) must have been a scorpion that fell from the thatched roof onto me. Luckily scorpions in Panama are not poisonous so I was only left with a swollen, red welt on my neck that healed in a week. November 3^rd and 4^th we have presentations of poetry, songs, dances, and lots of fun games for the students to play!

Later in November there was a parade in Chiriquí Grande (the nearest port town to Barranquilla) and I got to walk with my school. The kids danced baile típico (Panamanian dances) the day before and I met them and the teachers the next morning. It was a brutally hot day and our group started the parade route promptly at noon and spent the next three hours sweating it out in the sun. Despite the heat, it was a great day spent with my kids made even better by the fact that nobody passed out mid-parade!

 

This year also market my second Thanksgiving in Panamá. Last year, I was in Barranquilla due to a hurricane warning for Bocas del Toro. This year, there was no hurricane and I’m no longer living with a host family. So, I hosted (my first ever) Thanksgiving at my house! For the meal, I went with the theme: All the Sides. I invited Chona over (one of my neighboring PCVs) and we cooked up a campo feast: mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, corn bread, and veggies. I used every single pan in my house and it was a huge success!

Thanksgiving Dinner

I also had a despedida (goodbye party) for the end of the semester of my English class. For our party, we ate, played English music, and practiced talking in English. It was a great end to the semester!

 

 

With December came the worst of the rainy season. There were many days that I was stuck in my house, unable to leave because it rained so much. The first week of December was very exciting because it was Graduation time! My school goes to 9^th grade (that’s when kids here graduate and then go on to 3 years of high school) and this year my host sister, Irinelda, was one of the 17 graduates. Because Irinelda was graduating, my host mom’s oldest daughter came to Barranquilla and brought her 3-week-old baby (my host mom’s first grandchild). I got to meet my host niece and she’s pretty adorable. The baby doesn’t have a name yet (it’s very typical to wait to name a child until she’s at least a few months old), and I offered my unsolicited advice that they should name her Emily. I helped the teachers set up and decorate our rancho for the graduation dinner. We ate, listened to speeches, and toasted the soon to be graduates! The next morning, we had the graduation ceremony. It was surprisingly similar to a typical graduation in the US. It started with a procession of the graduates, then lots of speeches (including one from Irinelda), and finally awarding of the diplomas. Irinelda was first in her class and won a scholarship for high school! Afterwards, I (being the only person with a camera on my phone) became the official photographer and took dozens of pictures of the graduates and their families.

      

 

December 8 is Panamanian Mother’s Day. I spent part of the day with my host family as we celebrated my host mom and everything she does for the family. It was extra special this year because she had her grandchild home with her too!

A few days later, another PCV, Shellee, who lives in Coclé came to visit Barranquilla. Just a few hours after she arrived, it started pouring and didn’t let up for 72 hours. Because of the rain, we spent a lot of time hanging out at my house and visited a few of my gente. On our outing we even braved crossing what is usually an ankle deep stream that had turned into a swift moving torrent of water. It was totally worth it because we got Johnny Cakes out of it! It was still raining the morning we set out to leave, which meant that the chiva situation was very questionable. We got insanely lucky because a chiva showed up before 9am!! The rivers were so flooded that the seats inside of the car got soaked as we drove through the largest river. The rain hampered a lot of our activities, so we ended up spending a few days in Boquete before I headed to Panama City to visit Chicago.

A 3am wake up call was the start of my trip home and by 1pm I was at home! Mom, Maya, and Ian greeted me at the airport and laughed as I bemoaned the cold (40 degree) weather. I spent just over two weeks in Chicago; I saw friends, family, celebrated the holidays, and ate SO MUCH food! It was a wonderful and much needed break. But all too soon I was on a plane back to Panamá with two bags loaded with goodies from the States.

It was amazing how quickly my mindset readjusted to Panamá; there’s something about being back in the heat and humidity, seeing my Peace Corps friends, and staying at my usual hostel that naturally eases the transition. After a few days of relaxing and slowly meandering my way closer to Barranquilla, it was time to make the last leg of the journey and go home. I hauled all of my stuff to the bus station and one bus, one chiva, and 4 hours later, I was at my house. I waved and said hi to all my gente on my walk to my house and stopped to talk with my host family for a while. Then I tackled the daunting task of unpacking and cleaning my house after nearly a month of being unoccupied.

It’s coffee season, so a lot of my gente are harvesting coffee in Costa Rica or Boquete while school is on vacation (it starts again at the end of February). I’ve helped my host family harvest some of their coffee and discovered that it tastes even better when you’ve helped harvest it! The last couple weeks I have been in Barranquilla hanging out with my minions (and showing them some new games I brought), catching up with my gente, and getting visits from my neighboring PCVs. The rest of January will be primarily focused on reviving my English class and getting set up for February.