¡Bienvenidos a Nuestra Aventura!

Sunday, August 27, 2006

dos fotografias...

Los Hijos y yo jugamos a las barrajas (I definitely set the bar high with my win this game):














Our training site in the jungle (note: this is NOT where we live, only where we learn machete skills and the like):


Hola De Panama!!!!! (Parte Primero)

Well, we´ve been in Panama for about two weeks now, although at times (ie, all of the time) it feels like two years. We´re living in a small, rural village about an hour outside of Panama City, where it literally rains at least once a day...sometimes all day. And when it rains here, its rains HARD! Full on lightning and thunder and massive new rivers crossing previously dry exit routes. Luckily, nobody has of yet been swept away!

The family that Amanda and I are living with are great. I must say that we lucked out pretty nicely, as some volunteers are in much tougher situations. Our family consists of nuesta madre, nuestra padre, y tres hermanos (brothers) qien tienen nueve años (Christofer-9 years old), doce años (Luis-12 years old), y trece años (Jose-13 years old). Although a bit reticent at first, the boys are warming up to us nicely, although last night´s whooping I gave them at Gin Rummy may have set that back a bit...

Our town, Santa Clara, is not the Santa Clara of the previous post. Ours is in the mountainous jungle, very far from the beach. But we´ve been able to see quite a few crazy jungle animals already, such as massive numbers of leaf-cutter ants (these suckers are BIG), a big sloth in a bush (which upon discovery was soon afterwards pelted with rocks by the local youth), and a bunch of little spider monkeys swooping through the trees (we saw them during machete-training class in the Jungle). Of course, we´ve also seen a bunch of spiders, snakes, and mosquitos, but we dont really get the same exotic feeling from those as we get from the others. As with many poor rural areas, there are also a lot of stray dogs, most of them obviously not healthy, but so far quite friendly, which is good as Amanda likes to feed them whatever happens to be in her hand at the time (they are then inseperable from us for the rest of the DAY!).

Overall, the people in our village seem to be pretty nice, although our limited (but growing) Spanish ability doesn´t really afford us the luxury of actually being able to understand what they tell us. Instead, we´ve been integrating ourselves somewhat to the local populace through barefoot soccer, which usually takes the form of an ¨us vs. them¨game. Trying to endear ourselves to the Panamanians aside, the first game we destroyed them 3-0, but then lost the next 3-1. Of course, I think the oldest kid on the other team is 16 years old, no joke, with several around 12 or so, but we still need to play to our limits to even keep pace!

I did promise to update on the side-effects of our anti-malarial medication. Apparently, one of the more common side-effects is ¨vivid dreams,¨ with the occasional ¨losing touch with reality¨as a rarer, and more severe one. While I don´t think either one of us has lost touch with reality (although, would we really be able to tell?) our dreams have been quite interesting. Lets just say they´re more ¨realistic,¨ not scary or anything, but definitely feeling more like reality when actually dreaming. I guess its hard to describe accurately, but try google-ing ¨chloroquine dreams,¨ and I´m sure that something interesting will come up. Actually, there was one volunteer in our group who repeatedly dreamt that she was being murdered (seriously) which prompted a change in medication that we all appreciated. Ás for us, we really don´t mind, and I imagine that our experiences are more favorable than actually contracting malaria...

Well, as soon as we get our two-year assignment, we´ll let you know. There are several possibilities, including a ¨frontier¨ area towards Colombia that the Panamanian government is trying to develop to inhibit incursions by cross-border rebels. Oh the excitement! Until then, Hasta Luego!

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Contact Info...

Here's some address that will be good for at least the next 3 months for letters, packages, etc. If there are any changes, I'll post them!

(by fedex, UPS, etc.)
Peace Corps/Panamá American EmbassyEdif. 95, Ave. Vicente Bonilla
Ciudad del Saber, Clayton
Corregimiento de Ancón
Ciudad de Panamá
República de Panamá
Tel: 507.317.0038 Fax: 507.317.0809
Atentamente: Your Name

(by regular mail)
-Volunteer's Name
Cuerpo de Paz/Panamá
Apartado postal 0834-02788
Panamá, República de Panamá

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Trainee-ing

Orientation is effectively over. After approximately 41 hours of team building exercises and administrative details (not continuous), 37 new "trainees" (including us, the TrainORS) will be leaving for Panama tomorrow at around 1:30 pm. I have to say, I've been vacillating through the last few days from exhilaration to dread, from confidence to cluelessness, and back again, but have always been looking forward to tomorrow's inevitability. 27 months seems like such a long time and while this is time away from family, friends, and familiarity, it is also 27 month of adventure, character development, and excitement with Amanda.

The group we're with seems pretty diverse. There are people from all over the states, ranging in age from 21-30, and all with an engaging sense of humor (and just a few quirks). I must admit that I expected a different "type" of individual, and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of business majors with us (I guess I expected more "Environmental Conservation" and "Creative Writing"-type people, you know the stereotype!). We've already had some great discussions, and I feel that training for three months together will certainly be a good experience.
Our Peace Corps training site for the next three months will be in "Santa Clara, Panama," which looks like this:

Seriously...

Boardshorts and bikinis aside, Panama is still a very formal place, where how one dresses is received as a direct reflection of the respect one feels for whomever they're meeting with. Throughout training, the Peace Corps has definitely impressed this reality upon us, and so Amanda and I will be going out tonight to try and find some covered shoes for her that she feels will be more acceptable than some of the open-toed one's that we brought. And a big "Gracias" to my brother Mike, who came through in a heroic Fed-exing of my four dress pants that I left at home, hanging in the closet. Whoops! Here's a shout out to you, Mike. (MIKE!)

Well, we don't have too much longer to go, we're almost there and it still seems almost unbelievable. We'll update again when we get there, but this begins the stretch when we aren't completely sure about internet availability. Hopefully it will be easily accessible.

Until then take care, God Bless, and don't worry too much about us, because as you can see in the above picture...we'll be fine.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Well...



...we certainly have had a wonderful time here in New Jersey over the past couple of months. While not expecting to leave for the Peace Corps from here, this unexpected blessing has allowed us to see many friends and family, and have a whole lot of fun. Thanks to all of our loved ones here who made our trip so special. While here, we:







Visited Albert Einstein's house and went blueberry picking down by Princeton, which were baked into an exquisite blueberry soup by night's end. (note: when attempting a blueberry crisp, be sure to use a thickener!)














Fished the Jersey Shore several times for Striped Bass, Bluefish, Fluke, and the occasional pile of seaweed.













Visited New York several times for some great adventures with family and friends.












Spent time with two of Amanda's brothers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, along with many of the city's other cultural Meccas.









Spent a night at a remote & wonderfully restored, 18th century lighthouse in the middle of Newport Harbor, Rhode Island.
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(If you're interested, visit www.roseislandlighthouse.org for more information)
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I wish we could post all of our memories here, but suffice it to say that we had a great time. Thanks again for the love everyone has shown to us, and we look forward to visiting again in the future! Tomorrow morning, we leave for our two-day orientation in Washington, DC, then...ON TO PANAMA!!!!

Friday, August 11, 2006

Engineering a Safe Digression...




It looks like things are getting pretty crazy again up in the air. Maybe I'm slow, but I still find it hard to believe that there exist people who are so deranged that disintegrating planes-full of people in mid-air seems like a reasonable goal. While not an advocate of the death penalty, it is nonetheless emotionally hard to not want these individuals put down. Thank God we try not to base our laws on emotion but rather on reasoned and rational arguments. If guilty, I hope they sit in prison for a long, long time.

Interestingly, one thing I've noticed living back in Jersey, is that the pulse of these types of world affairs is so much more palpable here in the NYC area than it ever was when living in Honolulu. While we had the occasional fighter-plane flyover in Honolulu, and we were still included in the nation's color-coded threat scale (In Hawaii, I think it maintained a "coral blue" on the threat scale), it always felt like the safest place on Earth.

Although life obviously moves on, and one cannot be paralyzed with continuous worry about if/when the next attack will occur, it does become somewhat disconcerting to always see local areas mentioned as either targets or staging areas for these sinister events. For example, the bombing of the Twin Towers in 1993 was orchestrated from a Muslim clerics office in Jersey City, while the U-Haul used in the bombing was rented from a place in Cranford (again, NJ) only 3 or 4 miles from this computer. (kind of funny side note: a big break for this case occurred when one of the terrorists came back to the rental place to try and claim his deposit after blowing up the truck!)


The 9/11 plane that ended up crashing in Pennsylvania, and was reportedly on its way to DC, flew out of Newark, NJ, from the same terminal I've used countless times. All of the original anthrax letters that were sent to Congress and the NY Times by some deranged individual had New Jersey postal origins. And recently, some group was busted for planning to blow up the PATH train from New Jersey to NYC, a route that my family and myself takes regularly. Now these England-based bombers wish to destroy airliners bound, in part, to New York City. Aside from the fact that many of our friends and neighbors worked at the World Trade Center, and with most people around here knowing (at least about) someone who was killed, it maybe that the worry of another future attack is helping to keep many that I've asked cool to the idea of seeing the new Nicholas Cage 9/11 movie.

It's not that I'm expecting to be caught up in a
whirlwind of death or anything, but I must admit that in this context, my views on both national and airport security have changed somewhat, with more of an appreciation now for some of the necessary security hassles than I had back when I was only flying from Honolulu to Maui. It is unfortunate, but I cannot think of a more efficient way to control for some of the obvious risks than to search passengers just before they get onto the plane. I know that El Al (Israel's national airline) has a policy of intensively screening every passenger before allowing them to get on, but they also conduct even stricter searches at their gates, so much so that at 5 out of 6 of the US airports they fly from, they are the only airlines with a specialized secondary screening (including hand inspections of all carry-ons) for all passengers. Additionally, I imagine that many of those rejected as future passengers by El Al security are of a targeted demographic, a practice that would be (righly or wrongly) vigorously contested by many if practiced in America. Regardless, given all the craziness, I must say that when we leave Monday morning from NYC to DC, I certainly won't be complaining when they ask for my shoes. (Full Disclosure: Then again, we did switch our NYC to DC flight...to Amtrak!)

Friday, August 04, 2006

Weakest what?

Have you ever had to fill out an application or some kind of an "interview"-type form that asks you what your "strengths" and "weaknesses" are? Well, if anyone ever plans on applying to the Peace Corps, be prepared to answer that question in addition to questions regarding work experience and what your greatest hopes and dreams are, numerous times.

We received an e-mail a few days ago that asks us to replicate our previous answers to a new Peace Corps person, this time for purposes of helping to determine our specific placement site. To be sure, this is all very exciting, sort of like coming to the point in a car purchase when you begin to explore the available extras after already having determined the make and model (we're almost there!). But it feels like the salesman (person) is asking me over and over if I would use cup holders or the A/C!

Just now a thought occurs to me; maybe their repetitious inquisition is really a cry for creativity. I mean, who sits and really tries to figure out their "greatest weakness" for an application? Most of us put something down to makes us look unwittingly qualified like, "I sometimes have a hard time letting go of the team mission..." or "I often find it difficult to stand aside and not be a leader;" puhleeeese. I think I'll be going for creativity points this time, folks; "I have a heroin addiction," or "My craving for agony-driven wailing oftentimes supersedes my professional goals," come to mind as two possibilities. I'll report later if things go awry.

But really...when a question arises that has been identically answered numerous times through the same (uber-vertically aligned) organization, one would think that all of this duplication could be more easily remedied with their simple purchase of...a fax machine.