Finally! After a year and four months of waiting to leave, and two months of training... I visited my site. It was insanely nerve racking. This is my life for the next two years.
It's super weird coming to a community and putting yourself into their lives. The people are insanely kind and welcoming, but I feel a bit awkward. And they think I speak Spanish really well so they must be crazy.
When I came to panama I was ready for a small rural community. But after the "easy life" in Santa Rita, being out in the campo is definitely a reality check. Waiting 6 hours for a chiva and arriving in the pitch black with no electricity was not exactly how I wanted to do things. The first few days were tough. I am not a super chatty person, so just randomly meeting and talking to people is very difficult for me. When I live by myself I don't think I will ever have to cook. One day I got fed three lunches and five cups of coffee. I am just going to pasear when I am hungry and someone will feed me. I have started a following of kids here too.
One of the girls in my group is my closest volunteer and there is a teaching English volunteer in Las Minas who I met in my six hour wait. Also there is a japanese type peace corps volunteer in Chepo who is working with ANAM. So I will definitely have some people nearby to hang out with when I need a break.
Each day spent in the community was better than the day before. I started to feel more comfortable and met more people. I think that I am going to be really happy there and will be able to work well with the community.
At the end of my visit, the exiting volunteer came back and it was good to chat with her for her perspective on the community and tell me good places to buy things, eat, and Internet. I was also able to attend her despedida. The community had such nice things to say about her and it was really sweet. My favorite thing someone said was, "The best way we can thank her for all the work she did here, is to welcome the new volunteer and work even harder with her. " yup. That's my community.
And last but not least I met my dog! His name is Oliver and is super cute. He needs to be trained more and fixed because he gets into fights so hopefully that will calm him a bit.
And everything is falling into place.
Sent from my iPod
No comments:
Post a Comment