Well, my old camera kicked the bucket, so I got a new one yesterday. I'm real excited, and that's all I'm gonna say. Also, the other night I was roaming around near my house and I heard the sound of a dear little frog. I'm not entirely sure what class of frog it is, but it's green and layed eggs in a little pool next to my pad. Then I proceeded to take them in as my own personal pets and have been monitering their safety for over a week now. One way I've possible ensured their survival(or made them weaker, who knows), is I've been adding water to their pool. It hasn't rained in over a week(I mean, I live in the middle of the rain forest in the damn rainy season, where is all this rain I was promised??), so their pool keeps becoming this sad little mud spot on the ground. So I grab my 5 gallon bucket and add around 12 gallons of water to their little ecosystem. Good fun really, don't tell mother nature.


Hi Carmen!

The style of hammock I so desire to obtain(but are not made here).

Maw.

The kids. (By the way that is a cacao fruit in the water there. You know, where chocolate comes from.)
Adolescents.

So the first photo is just a pretty picture of the sun coming up during the boat ride. The second photo contains excactly what every person between the ages of 3-11, as well as perhaps most rural Peace Corps Volunteers dream about: a suspended toilet. That's right, it's almost like doing your #1 business on a swing. Also, I dare any of you guys to guess which bucket holds my linens and which contains my #2 business.

La Reinando

Around 2 weeks ago we had the 'Crowning' of the queen of all of Rio San Juan Piquini. There were 5 contestants and a girl from my village won! The way they win is they fundraise for the school, and whoever makes the most money gets the title. Then, we have a big party and the queen and all the runner ups have to dance with a fine young gentleman of their choice(pre-picked, of course). Anywho, here are 3 of the 10 videos I took that day. One is of the queen dancing with her fella(who is actually in fact her older brother), another is the kiddies having a very nice time with all of the toys the adults provided and the last is the Embera girls from my village dancing and singing. You can't really hear them singing over the crowd, and we ran out of light...but hopefully you all enjoy.

Behold!

May I please present to my vast internet audience the Elementary School of Emberá Puru del Río San Juan Piquiní, along with it's 28 or so students(2 are lefties)grades 1-6 all in one classroom and the lovely Profesora Anayanci!

Here's the not so bad view from the steps of the school at around 6:45am, which is what time I arrive to teach class. Coffee in hand, I await the struggled arrival of the students along with the inevitable 'crema' the PTO moms are cooking up (which I dream about nightly, salivating slightly all over my pillow).

Well I've been up river for a few weeks now and I decided it was time to come back into town to check off some errands and buy food. I'm moving into my third and last host family house before I get to live alone in my own pad(finally). Things are going really well in site so far, and work is starting to come along. I started my first classes teaching English to the kids in the school around 3 weeks ago, and last week I began my adult basic English class twice a week. I also offer a class for the more advanced students once a week in order to have exposure the more complex themes of the English language that they normally would not get. I'm learning a lot as I go, but teaching can actually be pretty fun.

Besides that I've spoken with much of my community about various projects and the importance of each. They seem pretty excited about building a water-catch system for the school. Currently the closest running water is around 200 yards downhill, which means in order for the moms who cook the food for the kids to retrieve water to cook with or wash the kids dishes, they have to either haul 5 gallon buckets uphill or take everything down to the spicket and then back up to the school. Also the kids currently do not have any drinking water nor a place to wash their hands. This seems like a good project for lots of reasons. Hopefully while this project is going on we will build a rancho area to make into the kitchen next to the school for the moms to cook at, as well as a place for all of the plates, cups, silverware and food to be stored.

There is a long list of other projects as well that we will be trying to get going, but I need to make sure I don't try and look ahead farther than I can work with right now.
My new paint job! Still missing a few spots...but I'll work up the courage pretty soon.
The back.

My view in the morning from my last host house.

Pretty awesome. The government makes cookies for the kiddies to eat in the school! Yum!

A few weeks back after our Agency Tour in Colon we went and stayed the night in Portobelo. Love that place.