Todo bien

Hi everyone!

We have been officially sworn in to protect and defend the constitution and such as PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS!!!  Wow.  It has been a long road to start a long road, but we are incredibly grateful to be where we are at right now.

So... WHERE ARE we at right now?

We bought a mattress in Penonome today so we are here to stay.  Our new address is:

<<One of our names>>

Cuerpo de Paz

Entrega General-0229

Correo de Penonome

Panama, Rep. de Panama

And don't forget to put that Holy Cross or "Jesus is Watching" sticker on any packages you send to make folks think twice about getting sticky fingers, hahahaha!  It's uncommon, but it can't hurt to take a precaution if you are going out of your way to send us something!

HOW are we right now?

Great!  Here in the campo they often say, "Aqui en la lucha," which translates to "Here in the fight" and has the rough meaning of "Fighting the good fight, but in a way that makes me happy."  Lauren has gotten some bug bites, had a nasty cold that made her weak with fever for a whole day, and she dropped a shovel on her toe yesterday at La Granja (remember La Granja from our last post?)  San Juanito folks like to work and work hard so to start integrating, we have simply started working hard too.  Here is our first week happenings:

Domingo - We arrived and got settled in our room.  It is a super nice room and our hosts are SO gracious, we have the BEST luck with host families!  Mud walls, cement finished floor, zinc roof, wood plank bed, a small desk lamp for nighttime, shower next to the kitchen, and latrine next to the chickens and ducks!

Lunes - Went pasearing (a Spanglish word that means visiting folks) in Santa Cruz (a neighborhood in San Juanito) with Anacleto (our ever-valiant and kind community guide).  Afternoon meeting with the ever-vibrant and super-amazing school teachers about our first mini-project of English classes, teaching the teachers English so they can provide their students the best quality English classes.

Martes - Lauren was sick and held down our hamaca (hammock)... THANKS MABEL!!!  In the afternoon she felt better so we went up to our future house and Abuelo Cholo and Abuela Chola helped us clean it up and we discussed possibly adding a kitchen in the back and finishing the mud walls to lock out those scorpions and tarantulas for good!

Miercoles - We worked with Pastoral Social at the property of some community members who just lost their father.  Pastoral Social is a church group that helps those in need around San Juanito, which is really cool and shows the kind of attitude they have here.  This involved much sweating as we hacked away on the mountainside with our machetes from 9 to 3.  The first task was a hillside of yucca, which is tricky because you have to hack everything EXCEPT yucca, hahaha!  Then we watched in awe as the six guys with us sped through an even bigger mountainside clearing everything there (trees, bushes, grass) as we ourselves got about ten feet up from the bottom!  Hahahaha!

Jueves - We worked at the school in the morning planting and cleaning parts of the school gardens.  Alex ended up helping some guys to unload two palettes of cement bags and giant pieces of zinc roofing... whew!  The afternoon was reserved for a celebration of "El Dia de los Ninos" or "Kid's Day," which involved raucous games and the questionable decision to load the kids up on ice cream AND Jello AND cookies AND candy!  Isn't every day kids day?!?!?!  Hahahaha!

Viernes - We worked at La Granja.  Lauren could be heard saying, "I wish my parents were here!'  Alex responded with, "Yeah!  So they could see you filling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of dirt!"  To which Lauren replied, "No, to HELP because they LIKE doing stuff like this!"  Much laughter.  In the afternoon and evening we completed our first Peace Corps construction project with Jacobo (the volunteer we are replacing) and built a pretty nice looking fogon (or stove) out of mud, cement, and sand.  We will likely be cranking out many more of those in the coming month.  We ended the day watching an ultra-violent movie at El Rancho and reflecting on the affects of violent media on the youth of San Juanito, not to mention the U.S. and rest of the world.

That was the week in all it's glory!  Fun, hard work, some hassles, reflection, constant Spanish improvement, beautiful toucans, and so on.  We are thinking that this sort of schedule will be indicative of the coming few months as we stretch our legs in San Juanito and get to know everybody and work til we can't get out of bed in the morning!

Much love,

Alejandro y Lorena