Wow! Time is flying by in our new home of San Juanito. Alex and I have been doing lots of different things in order to get to know our community better, and we have already started some mini projects. I'll list some highlights to give you some idea of what we are up to!
1. We had our first English lesson with the teachers at the school. Alex and I decided that we are going to team teach the class, but switching off who creates/teaches the lesson every other week. Alex took the first class and used music as his first teaching tool. He brought his banjo to the school and played an Avett Brother song in English and Spanish. The teachers LOVED it, and it was so cool to hear them singing along in English! It's fun to be the teachers of students that actually want to learn. The teachers are so enthusiastic and are looking forward to the classes to come. In exchange for English the teachers want to help us with Spanish so on Tuesday afternoons we have Spanish class and on Thursday afternoons we teach English.
2. On Thursday mornings we also spend our time at the school working in the school garden. The garden is really cool and includes a variety of plants and projects, including bell peppers, green beans, yuca, bananas, rice tanks, fish tanks, pineapple, cucumbers, (I'm sure I'm forgetting some here) they even have chickens for eggs and for meat. Needless to say there is lots of work to do at the school. La escuela also has an organization called Madres y Padres de La Familias. This includes all the moms and dads that have children in the school. They are all required to do some type of work at the school and if they don't, they get fined. The moms come during the week and make lunch for the kids and the dads come to the school on Saturdays to do work in the gardens, we've started working with the dads on Saturdays too.
3. We've continued with the stove project of the previous volunteer, making more stoves for families in the community. Alex may have touched on this in the previous blog, but I'll add my thoughts too. The stoves are really neat because they are more efficient than the traditional stoves (which includes a fire with 3 rocks around it for a pot to sit on top.) The traditional stoves smoke A LOT, use a TON of firewood and take a LONG time to cook anything. The new stoves are made of all natural materials, use less fire wood, they smoke less and they boil water muy rapido!
4. We planted banana trees and platino trees with a community member on his property, unfortunately a lot of his banana and orange trees are dying from some bugs/bacteria. I was able to share some of my agricultural knowledge I learned in training about some organic pesticides. He is very interested in working with me in the future with agricultural techniques so I am looking forward to that.
5. We started collecting some plants for our garden we are going to make at our permanent house. So far we have basil, celery, and some lemon grass. The lemon grass is sooo delicious. Our host mom makes tea out of it every morning for us. We also started talking about the improvements we want to make on our house. The community has been so awesome and they are willing to add an addition for a kitchen to our little mud hut. I'm looking forward to the construction, because then I'll know how to build a house out of mud.
6. We really have no idea what kinds of projects we will end up doing because there are SO many opportunities. Some ideas so far have been: a girl's group led by Lauren and a boy's group led by Alex, an environmental youth group called Panama Verde, trash clean-ups and disposal systems, composting at the school, bettering the soil for local farmers, some people still are not connected to the water system so they drink from creeks, very few folks wash their hands after going to the bathroom/before eating, raising bigger fish in fish tanks, enhance the community farm because prices are rising in the markets, getting the older kids to train for a running race in Panama, improving the school's computers, showing movies at the school for a fundraiser and to talk about movie ratings, and on and on and on. "Gracias a Dios" we don't really have to decide, it will be the community that tells us what to focus on!
I think that's about it for work related stuff...I'll share some things/quotes from normal everyday Peace Corps life tambien!
1. On average I see at least one toucan every day.
2. "I think I am slowing starving to death on rice." - says Alex
3. "Who invented indoor plumbing? They should be a Saint." -says Lauren
4. Our host sister got stung by a scorpion and our mom had to call an ambulancia because the venom was traveling up her arm. Pobrecita!
5. "That drink tasted like a tootsie roll ran through a car motor" - says Alex
6. "I wish I had a bomb collar for the roosters, and it would go off every time they crowed, and they'd get blown into a million little pieces."- says Lauren
7. We've been playing with the same three pieces of paper with Baukti (our 5 year old brother) for four days, they always say the same thing... treasure maps.
8. Lauren-"Remember when you picked the ants out of your jello?
Alex- "Yep."
Lauren- " I just ate the ones in mine."
9. After a hard days work we venture to the river for a relaxing swim...it's like the Jungle Book. If Alex and I get a cat to keep the bugs away we are going to name it Bageera or Sherkhan. haha!
10. It's been way too long since I've had chocolate.
Well that sums it up for now! We have been working on a detailed community map so that we can include everybody in future work and it is a great challenge to hang onto the names we learn. The trail system is pretty complicated and we aren't allowed to go on some routes because there are perros bravos!
Check Facebook for some updated pictures! :)
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