Familia Panameña

My extended host family

Our training community is a small town of several hundred people in Panama province. We have been here for a week and a half. It's not that far from the main roads and a major town, and has a tiny tienda (store), a paved main street, electricity, and running water (for several hours a day). Many men commute to Panama City for work and most women are housewives. There's a grade school here for the many children of the community. The whole community knows the volunteers and is very welcoming!  We are the second group of trainees to be located here. There are some really cute kids who know my name and call it out - I hope to know more of their names, in time. There are a few large family groups in the community; if you stay here a while you're bound to become cousins!  

The 17 trainees have been studying Spanish in the morning and technical training in the afternoon.  Both classes are very interactive and genuinely fun. The technical training, so far, has focused on how to work with a community, facilitating meetings, and identifying needs. This weekend we spent a partial day exploring the water system for this town.  That was interesting!  It involved a hike up a creek bed to a hillside spring, or "ojo de agua". Some of the community's water is piped from that source, but most comes from a more recent well that taps the groundwater.  The community put in the water system in the 1970's. Before that, they carried water from the river. We looked at it as an example of the kind of system we could be working on in our communities. We also found some large spiders in the creekbed!

My host family is an extended family of seven: mother Jilma, father Amadiz, and children Elis, Heidi and Edward.  Elis is married; he shares our home with his wife Sujeidi and baby boy Elian. The oldest son is Julio, he's also married with a baby son and lives up the street. The family is kind and extroverted; they like to talk with me!  It's exciting to be able to communicate entirely in another language! I don't understand everything yet- and can't really yet follow a conversation that's not directed at me. I've gotten better since I've been here, though, and my mind is coming up with the Spanish a lot more easily, instead of having to translate everything! My host family works hard, and when they're not working they tend to stay home and rest. It's a big thing in this community- and in all Panama- to visit other homes (this is called to "pasear").

Most of the community, including my host family, is Catholic.  Unfortunately the church is only open once a month- the priest has 20-some small communities that he rotates between. I hear the priest is Korean!  It's an interesting connection with the outside world.  As I understand it, few people from this small town travel much (or have the opportunity to).

My time here has been good so far; I'm particularly pleased with the friendly community and the excellent classes. It's also been a challenge in that our schedule is quite busy and my previous routines have all changed! I've felt quite unsettled at times due to the changing situation, but they say that's normal.

Each trainee or "aspirante" like me, is assigned to visit a volunteer in their site of service over the first weekend in September, to get a better sense of volunteer life. For me this involves a lengthy bus ride to Bocas del Toro province on the Carribbean side.  I'll let you know how it goes!