Twelth Month on Site

Hey everybody!

This upcoming week I will celebrate one year at my site in the Comarca Ngabe Bugle. The days can sometimes go by slowly but the year has flown by. It is definitely a blessing to have my wife Sarah with me. She has made this Peace Corps experience even better and I am very thankful to share this experience with her. You can follow her experiences at http://www.boja-cudubu.blogspot.com/

In the past month, we have done quite a bit of ¨pasearing¨, or visiting house to house. Everyone loves to have us over and share a drink or food with us as we tell stories of our wedding and hear them chat about life in their household. With over 700 people in our area, some people have asked us why we haven´t reached their house yet. ¨We´ll visit soon¨ is our common reply.

After school, some of the students found out that we have Uno. We made the jump to English, which has been a great way for them to practice numbers and colors.

I had a dangerous latrine experience last week, as I entered the latrine and sat down only to hear a swooshing sound and a black flapping animal emerge. I emerged safely, with my heart thumping as I saw a bat fly into the night. We have recently added a new lid to try and make sure this experience is not repeated.

The president of the water committee accompanied me last week to buy and install a chlorinator, which is a way to add chlorine to the aquaduct system. I will be testing the chlorinator as a part of my Master´s thesis.

Recently our group celebrated our one year anniversary as Peace Corps Volunteers at a nice resort for two nights. Then we had an all-volunteer conference, where we had training on HIV/AIDS and more Environmental Health Training. It was great to see everyone and learn more about the exciting things other volunteers are doing across Panama.

Tomorrow we start our first after school English classes for the fifth and sixth graders. We will be having class twice a week, speaking only in English to supplement their English class during the day. We just got some paint to start a World Map on the school wall.

Thanks for reading!

Kevin