Moving On!

The last week of training was full of excitement. To finish off our training of appropriate technologies, we built both a Lorena stove and a trash incinerator. To build the incinerator, we used old metal drums. One of the drums had previously been used to hold rubber cement. So get those cogs a rolling, and think what might happen if you light that residue on fire. KABOOM! It was pretty amazing actually. hehe Note to self, pour out all flammable substances before using an incinerator to keep toxic smoke to a minimum. Lesson learned.

We organized a Despedida (going away party) for all of our host families and had that on Sunday. We got in our last games of ultimate Frisbee, slack lining over the river, and a game of capture the flag. I'm bruised up from the first two, but at least I didn't get clotheslined by barbed wire in the third like one of my friends did. Ouch! Then bright and early Tuesday morning, we left our training community (and beautiful garden... sorry for the unturned pic) behind and made it back to Ciudad del Saber.

The past two days have been filled with more meetings and admin matters. The whole office is in full swing with last minute preparations for our swearing in ceremony and big 45th anniversary celebration later today. Unfortunately that means that my laptop will remain a doorstop for a few months until I can get boot disks sent from the States and start over. (Courty and Mom, could you start searching for those for me? Thanks!!!) Updates might be a little less frequent until I get that taken care of. I was able to copy off my pictures before my laptop decided that it really didn't want to function, so I won't be losing anything when I erase the hard drive.

Later today we swear in as Peace Corps Volunteers at the Ambassador's residence. Then we've got two days to play with until we report to our communities on Sunday. My address there is:

Kerry Piper
Cuerpo de Paz
Entrega General David
Provincia de Chiriqui
Republica de Panama

It's basically the equivalent of sending a letter to the capital of your state, and then retrieving it through a series of cubbies labeled by the first letter of your first name and the first letter of your last name. It's a good thing sending mail isn't too popular within the country! Although the David post office hasn't had many problems, it is recommended to put some religious insignia on things sent to add that little extra guilt factor in keeping people from opening mail that isn't theirs. hehe

I love and miss you all!