First Steps in Panama

I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again...

Landing in Miami, I found some fellow volunteers at luggage claim. Ha, a guy on the plane (not PC) mentioned how it is rediculous not to travel light on an airplane anymore. Little did he know that in addition to my backpacking pack carry-on, I also had another, bigger pack in addition to a rolling duffle that I checked! So I definitely brought more than necessary, but do I regret it? No. In fact, I already snuggled in my sleeping bag as everyone in my villa froze when we couldn't find where to turn off the AC. Perhaps I'll never use it again, but at least it served me well. (I probably won the prize too on the first day of introductions our partners had to introduce us to the group with the weirdest item we brought with my taxidermy kit!)

I've had people come up to me not only asking if I was the one with the weird stuff, but also thanking me for setting up the facebook group. Little do they know, until now, that I wanted to find out who was in the group too! Everyone is really cool though. They come from all different backgrounds and have some type of experience in their program area.

After hours and hours of lectures, group work and presentations, we loaded onto two busses for a ten minute trip back to the airport. A couple hours later we boarded the plane and a few more after that we landed in Panama. As we approached Panama City, the sets of waves made perfectly straight lines across the coastline. The buildings of the city rose out of the surrounding lowlands accompanying the famous canal. An egret on the tarmac greeted me as my first Panamanian bird. And the humidity didn't waste any time with its welcome.

Beside the Miraflores locks is where we are currently staying along with PC headquarters. We are still being oriented to the country and PC with full days of presentations and interviews. Our country director is an amazing guy and even jumped into the pool after our swim test with all of his clothes on to teach us how to make a floatation device out of our pants. Yes, that means he stripped down in the pool too. All the girls had a bloodtest to check if we were preggers. (Some of the guys got a kick out of thinking how big a surprise that would be now that we've made it here!) Then we had out language interviews where I didn't spit out all of my conjugations. I've still been placed above the level I need to be sworn in as a volunteer, so I'm happy. In my medical interview I found out I only need one shot (Hep A booster). That is great news as one guy needs eight shots!

And finally I had my project interview where I probably confused my director more than helped him in placing me in a site. I started out by saying that I would prefer to have a primary project other than environmental education because I feel I could always pick it up as a secondary project and combine it with other things. But then I got really into talking all about EE for the rest of the interview, so who knows! Truth be told, I'd be fine with EE as a primary project. So what happens, happens. :) During the medical interview I found out that you have to take Larium if you are in the eastern part of the country... So as neat as living in the Darien would be, I don't know if I want to do that. (Mom and Dad probably wouldn't be too happy about it either! hehe) So tomorrow everyone goes to get Yellow Fever shots while just a handful of us get to watch. Then we meet in our Spanish groups, have some more presentations, and head off to the mall for dinner.

I'm still really excited and any nerves I may have had keep drifting away day by day. We'll be moving in with our host families this weekend. Boy does time fly!