Long days, short nights

 After seven hours of travel time, I arrive in beautiful DC. Since I was not able to leave Arizona and make it on time the day of the Staging Event, Peace Corps flew me out the night before. A few others arrived early as well and we took advantage of the free time to see the sites of DC. I got to see the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, the White House (surprisingly anti-climatic) and visited a few museums of the Smithsonian Museum series.

The Staging Event has several purposes: to have a meeting spot for all trainees who are spread throughout the country, receive student loan deferment papers, and fix any other paperwork trainees may have had problems with. It was also a good opportunity to meet the other trainees. We had two groups of volunteers: CEC (the sector I am in) and Teaching English. We discussed the history of the Peace Corps, why we applied, and what are our expectations. An inserting fact: JFK was inaugurated in January of 1961, proposed the Peace Corps in March and had the first volunteers out of the country by September of the same year!

The next morning at 3 am we loaded onto the bus to head to the airport. For those planning a visit from the states, sit on the left side of the plane! There are gorgeous views of the city flying in. We were greeted by PC staff and volunteers and taken to PC headquarters, about 20 minutes outside of the city. Headquarters are in Ciudad del Saber, which is actually an old US Marine Base (in other words, some of the fanciest buildings around). We spent 4 days in Ciudad del Saber: we met an abundant amount of staff members (including medical and security staff), women received a pregnancy test, took language placement exams, had interviews with the country and program director, and received lots of stuff. What kind of stuff do you ask? A word of advice to future volunteers: leave some room in your bags when you arrive. You will be given an obnoxiously large medical kit, a mosquito net, a Spanish-English dictionary, and a binder full of information.

View of the city

 We also took a trip to the National Terminal, where we learned a little about the transportation system (mostly buses however Panama is currently building a metro) and did a bit of I-forgot-to-pack-something shopping.

After 4 days in Ciudad del Saber we moved in with our host families. I will save a description of my family for another post! CEC trainees are living in Santa Clara and TE trainees are in Santa Rita, both approximately an hour from Panama City.

I have really enjoyed training for far, but it is exhausting. Long days and short nights. Every morning we have language class from 8-12. I was placed in intermediate-middle, which is the level I need to be at when I swear in at the end of training; only hoping to improve from there! Then we have technical classes from 1-5. For technical classes, the first 2 hours are usually bureaucratic have-to-cover-topics, but interesting nonetheless. We have covered topics such as cross cultural sensitivities, what types of things CEC volunteers work on, and the history of development within the world and how the Peace Corps approaches development.

Many people think Peace Corps volunteers arrive to a country, build houses, pick up some trash, teach some English, then leave. Peace Corps emphasizes on building sustainable relationships in your assigned community. For example, the first three months at your site you are encouraged to pasear,  a Spanish verb which means to hang out, visit, and get to know each other. Panamanian culture is full of pasear-ing, so it is not weird to stop by on a Tuesday afternoon and chat. This time should be spent getting to know the people and assessing their needs. The community has asked for a volunteer so they are excited to have you! You can then assess what the majority of people would like the volunteers' help on. This can range from trash management, reforestation, sustainable agriculture, learning English, ect. Then the volunteer can then help the community by educating on the particular topic, connecting the community to national agencies for help, teaching community members to write grants, showing them alternative methods to trash management, ect. After all the volunteer is only going to be there for two years so it is important to educate people in order to change behaviors, because that is what is going to make a long term impression.

So after discussing topics such as these, the latter 2 hours of technical classes are interactive. We have done garden work, learned how to use Panamanian tools such as the machete, and have built trash incinerators. I can go on another long rant about this, but will keep it short. Basically Panama has no national trash management system. Many people out of the city burn their trash from a hole in the ground. Burning of plastics and other materials releases toxins in the air, which has negative health effects. The air in Santa Clara is always a little hazy with so many people burning trash. Incinerators are basically just metal cans that you burn trash in. However, the can holds in the heat which burns the trash at a higher temperature. Therefore, the fire is so hot that the toxins released are also burned as well and not released in the air. Incinerators are also great for smoke control.

After 8 hours of class, I usually come home and hang with the family. After a day full of Spanish and technical information, my brain is mush and ready for bed usually around 9 pm.