Christmas in the Jungle....average at best.

Christmas in the Jungle, or rather a lack there of….


Yesterday was Christmas. I wouldn’t have known it was Xmas unless I looked at a calendar or called home. On Christmas Eve I climbed into bed after a day of cutting down wood in the jungle for my house only to have my host family in the room above me turn on their tiny TV (the screen is probably 3 inches by 3 inches) and watch some Xmas movie in Spanish. I’m not sure what movie it was, but all the voice acting was dubbed in Spanish. Although the dialogue was in Spanish, all the Xmas songs were still in English. So here I am lying in bed in the middle of the Panamanian jungle, mildly depressed because I’m not with my family in the snowy climate I’m used to for Xmas eve being forced to listen to the song “White Christmas,” an expression that has absolutely no meaning to Panamanians. I sat there praying that it would start raining as hard as possible to drown out the noise of the TV…sadly, the rain waited till Xmas morning.
On Xmas morning I woke up at 530AM Panamanian time (530CST) to get dressed and prepared to go cut more wood for my house. Depending on how smoothly the cutting went, we were slated to finish cutting the 2105 ft of wood necessary for constructing my house, but I’ll talk a little more about that in a second. All right, so I wake up to get ready to leave to work by 6 only to be greeted by rain. Panamanians aren’t ever on time in the absence of rain. When it rains, they are even less punctual. So I climbed back in bed to listen to the rain while I waited for my host father to wake up so I could find out when and if we were still going to cut wood. The rain slows down and he wakes up around 7. I climbed out of bed, made the daily trip to our composting latrine, put on the dirty sawdust-covered clothing I’ve been wearing for the past 3 days, took my drug cocktail (malaria pill, vitamins, anti-inflammatory I twisted my other ankle last Sun in a soccer game so now I have two bogus ankles), brushed my teeth, readied the gas and oil for the chainsaw, and headed to my neighbor’s house for breakfast. Anytime you have a workday in my community, the person who is getting help with work is expected to provide breakfast and lunch for all the workers. Most Panamanians run on rice, sugar, and green bananas; therefore, buying food for the day isn’t that big of a deal.

Merry Christmas! The above picture is of me on Xmas morning. I’m holding my wonderful snowman and getting ready to put on my mud-crusted dirty pants and rubber boots. I don’t really know why I have on two different colored socks; they were both clean and close that’s the best explanation I have.

So we venture to my neighbor Cornelio’s house where his wife has prepared the food for us. Breakfast was a few fried eggs, rice, green bananas, and coffee flavored sugar water. Not the usually Xmas breakfast of biscuits and gravy that I know and love, but hey I did get two eggs. After breakfast we made the 30-minute hike to the huge tree we cut down 2 days prior. This tree was roughly 3.5 feet in diameter; see the picture below. I put my hat on top of my machete in front of the tree to trying and give a little scale.



Anyways, after our hike we started cutting down wood. We cut about 5 boards and then the chain on the saw broke. Luckily, we had an extra chain. So the guy cutting the wood, his name is Benicio, puts on the new blade and we get back to work for about another hour before the saw just stops working. Also, during the morning, we were periodically drenched with rain. Lunchtime was approaching, and Cornelio’s two sons had all ready been sent out to bring us our lunch, so we packed up our stuff and sat around waiting for them to show up with our lunch. The picture below was our lunch on one of the days we worked. It was boiled green bananas, rice, beans, and tuna served to us in big green leaves.


So after lunch, we returned home to talk about working on Saturday to finish cutting the wood. I needed to go to Changuinola to get more money and food to finish working on the wood. So after hammering out the details of working this Saturday to finish, I backed up a bag and grabbed a bus to Changuinola to get supplies.
Not really your traditional North American Xmas. Although it was a new experience, it was definitely a Xmas experience I wouldn’t like to repeat. It was my first Christmas away from home and my family. Every year I know others go through Xmases without their family, but being my favorite holiday, being away from my family was rough. I was actually dreading calling home at first because I knew my mom was going to answer the phone with a “Merry Christmas.” When I did call, she did she did exactly that; it brought a tear to my eye. To all my family, I love and miss all of you! Thanks for being so supportative. I will be home for the holidays next year!

Anyways, a quick summary of the housing project. I’m building my house in the center of town. We are cutting roughly 2105 feet of wood for the house. The house will be 16ft by 16ft with 2 rooms (8ftx8ft) and a porch(16ftx8ft). The kitchen will be on one end of the porch. We have cut down wood in 3 separate locations, all of which are between a 25-35 minute hike from building site. After we finish cutting the wood tomorrow, Saturday, I will begin playing a big work day of roughly 20-30 people to haul all the wood to the building site. It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds. Some of the lumber locations are crazy difficult locations to hike to without having to carry a large quantity of lumber. Plus, there is no way to get a horse into these places to haul wood either. So it should be interesting. For more pictures of cutting down trees, check out my photos. I’m also going to try to load a video of one of the trees being chopped down. As of now, my house is slated to be finished by the end of Jan or beginning of Feb. My fingers are crossed.


En la lucha,


Brian “Koguira Noin”

7 Days until Christmas…. Still no snow….

Some days I wake up, thinking that my Peace Corps experience has been a dream only to be jolted back to reality by the mosquito net hanging over my bed and the crying 2 year old in the room above. Anyways, this past week I’ve attempted to work on my house and have made one very small advance, I purchased oil for the chainsaw. I attempted to buy gasoline for the chainsaw so we could begin cutting the lumber for my house, but all the gas stations in Almirante were out of gas. So little to nothing has been done to work on my house. Although, my host father still insists it can be completed by sometime in January. I’m starting to have my doubts. Anyways, I’m currently in the regional leaders house in Changuinola (see pictures below).

A third year volunteer currently lives here and acts as the Regional Leader of the Bocas Del Toro province. He is currently on vacation in the US. If a volunteer decides to extend beyond his or her initial two years of service, they are required/given a one-month vacation. Anyways, regional leaders live in a central location in their province. Their duties consist of aiding the other volunteers in the province, helping develop future locations for volunteers, and working with the many agencies that exist in Panama. Our benevolent regional leader (RL) allows the volunteers in the area full access to his house, even when he is not home. So a big thanks goes to the RL of Bocas. Also, the house is located right next to the Chiquita banana company’s banana fields. See the picture below for a view of the back yard.

The blue bags hanging are housing the bananas. Being this close to the banana fields, we periodically are sprayed with pesticides and fertilizers. Hopefully I’ll grow stronger and be bug free, time will tell..being bug free would be nice…


As I’m typing this blog, this little guy keeps jumping in my lap and trying to type on the keyboard. He belongs to one of the volunteers close to where I live. He has two black kittens. I can have one of them when I have a place to live. I’ll probably take one to help keep rodents and other small animals out of my house.


Well I was going to talk about my projects, but I’m not entirely in the mood to talk about it, plus I’m still watching potential projects unfold. So I’ll have an update on that later. Now I’m going to talk a little about soccer or the lack there of. Last Sunday, Cornelio(my neighbor) and I showed up for our soccer game in Miratre(not sure if that’s spelled right but it’s my best guess). We showed up before our game began and got suited up to play. Our game was to be on the same terrible mud hole as the previous weekends. So the game starts in 15 minutes and we are the only ones from our team at the field. Since we only had two players, we ended up forfeiting the game. 5 minutes after forfeiting the game, the rest of our team showed up. Panamanians aren’t very punctual. I’d like to make a few other comments about soccer while I’m on the topic. Ngabes don’t know how to play defense, and Panamanian officials don’t like me. I’m not sure if they dislike playing defense or they don’t know how to play defense, further investigation is needed. At one game, anytime I made minor contact with anyone on the other team, I was called for a foul. I made a comment to the ref that “I can’t help that all of the Panamanians are tiny.” He didn’t think it was very funny. I thought it was hilarious. For the rest of that game, anytime I thought I was going to make solid contact with another player, I would knock the guy down to at least warrant the foul. We did end up winning the game. Anyways, there is another game this Sunday on the Rio Oeste field. Hopefully the rain will stay to a minimum so the field isn’t a swamp; my fingers are crossed. (My jersey below.. it's a little big but neat looking.. also Benicio Robinson is a politician. Politicians here put their name on everything)


Oh well I need to finish checking my email and get some groceries. Tomorrow morning I’ll be headed back to my site to hopefully work on cutting wood for my house. On my way to Changuinola today, I checked and made sure there is gas, so we should be good to go.

Merry Christmas to All! This will be my first xmas away from my family and out of the states. It doesn’t feel like the Christmas season at all. I occasionally see xmas decorations, but without snow and cold weather; it just isn’t the same. Oh well, my next post will have thoughts and photos from my xmas. Don’t expect much, it all ready feels like it’s going to be a very anticlimactic day. Although, New Year’s should be a good time, most of the volunteers in my area are going to the island of Bastamientos to celebrate. I’m looking forward to that! To all of those in cold weather, enjoy it! I’m getting slightly tired of blazing hot days, humidity, and rain. Make a snowman for me!


En la lucha,


Koguira

CasiCasa, the Mudhole, 9lbs of chocolate, and “Xmas is in less than 2 weeks, where’s the snow?”

It’s Saturday December 13th, and it’s currently raining, big surprise. I’ve been back in my site now for over a week and most of the flood waters have receded. My community has sustained negligible if any damage from the flood. I’ve spent the last week hanging out in my community as well as making plans for my future house, playing soccer, and watching it rain.

Last Sunday, December 7th, my soccer team played a game in a local community. It had rained for the prior two days. Therefore, the field was in absolutely horrendous condition. My teammates and I grabbed a cab to the game after we hiked to the main road from the village. I had the wonderful privilege of riding in the back of the pickup truck in the middle of the rain. So upon arrival to the field, I was all ready soaked. Our game didn’t start until about 230; we arrived at the field at about 11. Therefore, my team had plenty of time to sit around, smoke cigarettes, and drink sodas before the game….. such a wonderful idea before doing an intense cardiovascular activity. Also to my dismay, the field was literally a giant, festering hole of mud. I would estimate roughly 3-4 inches of mud on the entire field. So there I sat in the rain dreading the impending circus in ankle-deep mud while watching my teammates destroy their lungs and drink carbonated beverages. The game began and was indeed a circus. I’m not even sure what the final score was; I was too busy scrapping pounds of mud off my feat through out the game. The final score was either a 2-2 tie or we lost 3-2. We physically assaulted the field as well. It was utterly destroyed by the end of our game. Well it was actually destroyed before our game even started, and it was further destroyed by the game after ours. Afterwards we had to find a river to wash all the mud off our gear before we ventured home. Overall, the experience was mildly entertaining. The muddiness of this province of the country is starting to eat away at my nerves.

About a month ago, I made plans to move into one of the local houses that was disponible or available. The house is all ready furnished with all kinds of goodness. It had a bed, pots and pans, a stove and gas tank, and even wires run for light bulbs. On Tuesday Dec. 8th, my host father and I drew up the plans for the additions we were going to build for the house. These plans consisted of constructing a rainwater collection system next to the kitchen so I could have water in my kitchen, a shower under the water collection system, a composting latrine, and a solar panel system to charge my cell phone and have light. So Tuesday night we were up till about 130AM drawing up the plans and making a shopping list of items I would need to purchase to build and construct all these system. The following day, Wednesday, I was informed by my host father that I could no longer move into that house in two weeks. I was rather upset because that was the only house available for me to rent. So now I must build my own house. Therefore, I won’t be able to move until it is finished. Supposedly my villagers are telling me that we can cut down all the trees needed for the food and have all the materials ready before Christmas. They seem to insist that we can construct the house in a week and a half. I hope this is true so I can hopefully be moved into my own place by early to mid January. I am hoping to start cutting down the trees tomorrow or Monday. My fingers are crossed. As a consolation prize, my host family gave me 9lbs of freshly ground cacao(chocolate powder). I have no idea what I’m going to do with 9lbs of chocolate. See the pictures below.

Well there are less than two weeks till Christmas it feels like it’s still the middle of January. The days are sunny and hot or rainy and hot, usually the latter. Every now and then I’m reminded that is almost Christmas. I’ll walk around town and see Xmas decorations up, but it just isn’t the same when it’s not cold and there is no snow.

The above photo illustrates the closest I will be to snow this winter season.. Thanks to my mom and dad for sending the little guy.

Some days it feels like it’s the middle of August and I must return to college in a few weeks. Other mornings, I wake up and I forget that I’m actually living in the jungle in Panama. Each day is an emotional roller coaster full of new and often very foreign experiences.

In my next blog I’ll provide some more insight to actual projects I’ll be working on in my community. Yes I’m actually doing work; I don’t just play soccer, kill small animals, eat bananas, and poop in a hole. More to come next week!

Aqui en la lucha,


Koguira

Lluvia, lluvia, lluvia.....

Tuesday November 18th started out as a normal day. I woke up early that morning to participate in a “Junta,” the Spanish equivalent of a workday. After breakfast, I ventured into the farm of one of my neighbors with him and 5 other locals. We spent the morning clearing a portion of his farm with our machetes. When these guys chop with their machetes, it looks like a lawn mower cleared the area. Anyways, we spent the morning clearing the farm and killing chipmunks, supposedly they eat the cacao. Another benefit to killing the chipmunks is that we get to eat them. There is not a lot of meat on a chipmunk, but it surprisingly has a decent flavor. After we finished clearing the farm we ate lunch, which was accompanied by a fresh glass of hot chocolate from the cacao in the community. After lunch I returned to my house to relax a little and read for a bit before another Peace Corps volunteer from a close by community arrived to learn how to make chocolate from dried cacao seeds.
My fellow volunteer Rebecca arrived a few hours later. Her, Charlo (the guy I live with), and I talked about Rio Oeste and cacao for a while. We then ventured to the town center to meet up with other community members to process dried cacao beans into chocolate. This process consists of roasting the beans over a fire to make sure they are sufficiently dry. After the roasting, the shell of the bean must be removed. We did this by hand. It was a long, tedious process. Afterwards, the meat of the seed is then ground into unsweetened chocolate mush. We added a little water to the mush to make it a little smoother so we could roll the mush into balls and wrap them in foil to sell. Rebecca and I had fun learning and helping to create the fresh round globs of chocolate. We then made some fresh hot chocolate by boiling some water, adding some of the fresh chocolate, and mixing some sugar. It is the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. After drinking a few glasses of the hot chocolate, Rebecca returned back to her community in Bella Vista, and I returned to my house for dinner. Luckily, I arrived at home right before the rain started. As the rain started, so did another adventure…..
The rain started on the evening of Nov. 18th. Well the rain did not stop until about Nov 28ish. Panama has just experience the worst flooding it has had in 40 years. My province of Bocas Del Toro was more or less underwater.

Luckily, my site is somewhat elevated. Therefore, the flooding in my site was not bad at all, although, the above picture is from my friend Ray’s site. As you can see it was rather terrible in other places. The picture below is also from Ray’s site. He was in one of the worst spots. In some places in his site, the water was 8-10 ft above the ground.

The rivers in my site were incredibly large, but didn’t cause any damage. Many farmers in my area were losing cacao because they could not dry the seeds that were quickly molding in all the moisture.
On November 26th, the Peace Corps office in Washington DC issued an order to evacuate all the Peace Corps Volunteers from Bocas Del Toro. Although, this ended up being a somewhat difficult feat because the road between Bocas and the second largest city of David in the province of Chiriqui had sustained heavy damage from landslides. Roughly 70 kms of the road have been damaged, and roughly 20 kms of the road have been completely destroyed. Also, during the flood, cell phone service was periodically offline. So it was quite an adventure getting coordinating with the office and all the volunteers in the province. Eventually, we were all consolidated to the city of Changuinola. On Nov 27th, Thanksgiving, we were flown out of Changuinola to the city of David. The picture below is some of us sitting in the airport waiting for the plane.

Even though my site has no sustained extensive structural flood damage, my community and the surrounding communities have been affected by the lack of transportation into the province. Stores began to run out of food. Gas stations were running out of gas. Water lines had been broken; therefore, eliminating supplies of clean drinkable water.

After 8 days in David living in a hotel taking hot showers and not eating green bananas, I’m in the town of Almirante buying groceries and heading back to my village. Our time in David was spent making contacts with agencies and gathering materials to aid in the disaster relief efforts. On Wed Nov. 3 a group of us went to clear flood debris in a community called Boquete to the north of David. Well I need to get to the grocery store. I’ll try and provide an update of the flood damage in my next post.


En la Lucha,

Brian

A boa tried to eat my chicken....and I have a new name.

The morning after I returned home from watching the elections in David, my host dad woke me up to show me the 8 or so foot boa that had tried to eat one of our chickens. There are pictures of it in my Flickr, check them out. So after we stood talking about it and poking it with a stick, we buried it in a hole. I tried to convince him that we should eat it because I needed and still need more protein in my diet, but he didn't think it was a good idea. Which brings me to another rather trouble area, my diet.

The people in my community eat what they have, which makes sense. So for the last few weeks I have been eating rice and green bananas. Occasionally I get some protein, but it is only when I bring home some type of protein rich food from the store. Even then, it is only a small amount. So I've adopted the hot sauce diet. I load down all the food with habanero pepper hot sauce hopping to add flavor to the food or eventually kill my taste buds so flavor won't even matter anymore.

Life has been a little slow lately, I've done a substantial amount of reading. I find I've started to miss home a bit. Every now and then I spend too much time reclining in a hammock thinking about what I'd be doing if I were in the US. I just finished Atlas Shrugged. It's a great book, but a little too long. The weather has been relatively nice, not to much rain. I have another soccer game this coming Sunday.

Wednesday, the 11th of Nov, the community gave me a new name. My new name is Koguira Noin. The village had a big meeting where they talked about and eventually voted on what my new Ngabe-Bugle name would be. I was named after one of the founders of Rio Oeste Arriba. He may have also been a "botanico" or the equivalent of a witch doctor. The botanicos here know all the herbal remedies for different ailments. Some of the remedies work well, others not so well. One botanico said he could cure AIDS..... I slowly walked the other direction....

Anyways, I have to go buy groceries get some food and get home for soccer practice.

Aqui en la lucha

Koguira

Mi primero semana en la selva... and other thoughts..

Hey all!

I've spent one week in my new home hanging out with the people, killing scorpions, working on the chocolate farm, naming the bat that lives in my room, and playing some soccer. Anyways, first of all, I have posted new pictures in my Flickr account. I wanted to put some pictures on my blog here, but I need to get some photo editing software to shrink them down a bit to post them within my blog. Although, I have posted a link on the the right side of my blog that should take you directly to my photos! Check'em out! Another note on the pics, they don't have descriptions yet because I ran out of time to put descriptions on them. So I'll go back and do that soon..... I hope.

Anyways, I'm currently in the city of David. I ventured down here yesterday to watch the elections with other PC volunteers. It was a blast! There were about 25 of us in a local casino watching CNN. It was great to finally meet some of the other volunteers that live on my side of the country. Plus, it's always nice to see the volunteers from my training group. I was a little sad when we all parted ways after our swearing in as volunteers.

All right, I need to talk a little about my first week in the jungle, and I don't have much time because I have to catch a bus back to the jungle. So I'm currently living with another host family in a house on 10 foot stilts. I have a host father, he's 28, a host brother, he's 2.5, and a host mother, I'm not sure how old she is, I'd guess 22-25ish. Anyways, speaking of my little hellian host brother, he is a bit of a terror. The aquaduct in my community rarely functions correctly; therefore, we acquire water from the rain and a little stream behind my house(the same place I bathe... Don't ask). So anyways, the other morning I finish up with my breakfast only to walk to my room and see the little turd peeing from a little walkway to another part of the house into one of our water-collecting vessels. I wish I had been close, I would have wacked the little turd in the back of the head. Instead, I had to settle with yelling at him in Spanish and English(he doesn't understand English, but I wasn't to happy with his urine in my drinking water). I also live with a random assortment of dogs, a small kitten that I named "Perro" which is the Spanish word for dog, they thought that was hilarious, a few horses, a rabbit, chickens, and a few other random animals. Ahh I forgot, I live with a parrot too. He is constantly making annoying noises. We actually put him in a cardboard box the other day to get him to shut up.

So my first morning living in my new site, I made my morning journey to the composting latrine. I'll be posting pics soon of my glorious poo receptacle. It actually has a pretty nice view. So I return to my room to find a scorpion chilling out in the middle of my floor. He caught the broadside of my show, then I fed him to the dog. I thought it was a good start to my first morning in my new community. Speaking of other animals in my room, there is a bat that comes to visit me ever evening. I named him Vicente. He eats insects; so he's cool to have around.

A few other highlights.

Most of my time is spent wandering around the community and talking with people. I still need to work on the Spanish skills. Although, it rained for about 4 days straight when I arrived. So there were a few long days where I just sat around reading and sharpening my machete.

Anyways, on Sunday, the community plays soccer. So they tell me to show up at the field around 4PM. I show up thinking it will just be a pick-up game of soccer. When I arrive, there is another official game going on between two teams with refs and everything. A guy walks up to me and hands me a jersey and tells me to go warm-up with my team. It was a pretty sweet experience to show up and play a full 90 minute game with my communities team, not to mention I have a sweet jersey. Although, we didn't win, I need to teach my team how to pass; it was great, and the field was a swamp.

Anyways, there is much more to talk about, but I really need to catch my bus so I can make it home before dark. More to come soon, sorry to cut off in mid-story!


En la lucha,

Brian

Training and other randomness..

Sorry for the delay in updating my blog, but the last 10 weeks of training have been ridiculously packed full of training events. Anyways, I have finally arrived to the community I will be living in for 2 years. The name of my community is Rio Oeste Arriba in the Province of Bocas Del Toro (very close to Costa Rica). My community is very close to a city called Almirante. Almirante used to be the headquarters for the Chiquita banana company. Now the town is rundown and trashy. Anyways, let me go back to the beginning of the Peace Corps experience.

All right, well I left for Miami on August 11th from Indianapolis with a suitcase and a big backpack. I arrived in Miami, FL for staging or orientation. At staging, I met the other 34 people I would be training with as part of the 62nd Peace Corp group in Panama. The 35 of us were split into two groups, Community Economic Development (CED) and Environmental Health (EH). After a few boring days in Miami dealing with logistics, signing papers, and policies. We left for Panama on August 13th.

Upon arrival to Panama, my group went to Ciudad del Saber (city of knowledge). This place is similar to a college campus with dorms and offices. It also contains the Peace Corps office. We stayed in ciudad del saber until Sunday August 17th. Our time there was packed full of meetings to go over more orientation, set up our bank accounts, receive vaccinations, etc. On Sunday August 17th, we departed for a community called Santa Clara de Arraijan, a little southwest of Panama City. I would be training and living with a host family for the next 9 weeks in this community.

Training consisted of four hours of language training and four hours of technical training Monday-Friday. Occasionally during the week, often on Fridays, we would go to a conference center in a close city call Chorrera. Conferences consisted of more Peace Corps policy, safety, and medical issues. Anyways, back to training. We trained in our sectors; therefore, I, being part of CED, trained with all the CED individuals. Training as a whole was beneficial for the most part. I needed more language training then tech. So often during tech training, I would take an additional hour or two of language instead of tech. Tech training consisted of learning different tools for presenting information to our future communities. As a CED volunteer, our goals are to work with Cooperatives in Panama, help them strengthen business practices, and cultivate leaders. Also during training, I spent a great portion of my time traveling around the western part of Panama. During the second week of training, I went to visit a volunteer in La Comarca Ngabe-Bugle in the city of Soloy. Soloy is a huge indigenous town next to the Soloy River. This was an interesting experience because the Ngabe(the indigenous people that live there) don’t really like to talk. So they just stared at me as I walked around checking out the town with the volunteer I was visiting. After 4 days in Soloy, I returned to Santa Clara to continue training. During training, our language skills and adaptability to the culture are always being monitored. This is done so that my boss, Associate Peace Corp Director (APCD) Zach can place me in a community that I can easily live in for 2 years.
So week 4 finally arrives and I was placed in a community called Rio Oeste Arriba in Bocas Del Toro. So I would be heading to Bocas del Toro with 6 other volunteers from my group, 4 CED and 2 EH. The following two weeks after site announcement, I went to Valled Del Risco in Bocas Del Toro for a week of studying the culture of Bocas with my fellow volunteers. The week following culture week was technical week. My technical week was in Santa Clara de Rio Serrano, practically in Costa Rica. This Santa Clara was located in the mountains and had an awesome climate. It was the first time I didn’t sweat while sitting in one place and eating my meals.
So following weeks 5 and 6, I had another week in Santa Clara de Arraijan full of training. During week 8, I was finally able to visit my community of Rio Oeste Arriba. After site visit, we had two more weeks of training. I recently swore in as a Peace Corp Volunteer at the American Ambassador’s house on Oct 22nd. Following swear-in, my group hung out at the beach for a few days to celebrate. Now we are all in our sites where we will remain to integrate for the first 3 months.
Well I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes; I’m trying to write as much as I can while I’m sweating my face off in this Internet café. Anyways, my host dad is waiting so I have to go. I’ll try and update this blog roughly every week or 2 from now on, now that I can have my own schedule.

Check out my pictures at

http://www.flickr.com

search for briancrum@ymail.com

En la lucha,

Brian

Welcome!

Welcome to my Peace Corps Panama Blog!

I'll be updating this blog over the next few weeks as I prepare to leave for Panama. Once I am in Panama, I will try to share my experiences and photos as often as I can.




Orientation
Departure Date: August 11, 2008
Destination: Miami, Florida

Training
August 13th-October 23rd
Destination: Panama

Assignment
Community Economic Development Consultant
Start Date: October 23rd 2008
End Date: October 30, 2010