Swear in!

Yesterday was our official swearing ceremony in the house of the U.S. ambassador. The vice-president of Panama was present, as well as the first lady of Panama and the ambassador to the United States. Afterwards many of us went out to Casco Viejo to celebrate the day many of us have been waiting for for almost 2 years.

Boat access only

I made it out! The jungle is nice, refreshing and dense. I have a feeling that Colyn and my mom are the only two people that will see these videos or read this, so this one's for you guys. A couple things to note from the trip:

1)The average spider is the size of my entire hand

2)Sloths!

3)I bath in a river, and a beautiful one at that.

4)My floor is made of treebark

5)I'm painted and look like i have tatoos now

6)rice, rice, rice and fried plantains. my belly is taking a toll....

Culture day!

This last Friday we had a big culture day in the Congo. This included native dress, music, dancing and best of all...FOOD! For future reference, the skirt I am wearing here is a traditional Emberà skirt that all the women will be wearing in my site(except they won't be wearing tops, we'll see whether i decide to or not). By the way everyone, I'm gonna be living in a National Park for the next 2 years! Pretty sweet, eh?

Unfortunately, we were not in town for the Strippers Mixto...

For the record there is a message painted on the rearview mirror. Or perhaps rather, a question: ¨Tell me how your heart feels, baby.¨

Good thing I was raised Catholic?

This morning I tought two Panamanian classes in a local school, and at the beginning of the Second Grade class the teacher had me stand up and recite the Our Father in English for the class to repeat...uhh....

This morning was excellent! I woke up around 5:45am and headed up to the fútbol field to play some sunrise Ultimate. Chris and I drew out in the dirt a small field to play 3’s seeing as there were only 6 of us(though not a bad turnout for 6am in a small pueblo in Panamá). It felt great to run around and get my blood going early, not to mention the delight that it could be done while playing with a disc. I was very pleasantly surprised to find out after a few points that most of the people who came out had a pretty good grasp on a few more technical rules than I had anticipated(insert me sort of looking like an ass a few times for attempting to explain what many of them already knew). At the end they were all excited to come back and do it again, so with any luck this will become a trend.

Aside from the Ultimate, I have been having a very nice time down here. I know it seems from previous post that perhaps all I do is await dusk to watch lizards eat bugs, but I promise that it is only a minor past time. Around 12 days ago a fellow trainee and I headed out to the Camarca to visit a volunteer living on a beautiful beach in the Bocas del Toro area. It required first a 6 hour bus ride, then a 2 hour chiva ride over the mountains, and finally a 2 hour or so boat ride across the Bocas Lagoon over to a little peninsula. The boat ride was beautiful and along the way we were even accompanied by a dolphin swimming and jumping with us only 20 feet from the boat. The other trainee and I spent around 3 days out there before enjoying a little bit of the David life where we ate pizza, used the internet and watched a Clash of the Titans in a movie theatre for $2.00. It was a good weekend.

I’ve been updating my smugmug frequently with photos, so if you have an interest to see what any of these experiences look like feel free to visit me there. www.tease.smugmug.com

Later dudes!

st

Nom Nom Nom! Lizard dinner!

73 bugs. one gecko. one mission.

Panama!

Here's a little boy hanging from a vine in a cave in panama. Today was pretty rad, if I may say so myself.

Eye of the Needle round 2!

Yesterday Brandon and I headed back over to Indian Creek in order to visit the Eye of the Needle, a hike that seemed very appropriate for several reasons. One, the "eye" was the very first location we ever went on as the worlds #1 hiking team ever. And two, we visited this location exactly one year and six months ago almost to the day, making our two experiences coincide on almost exact opposite days of the year. It was beautiful out there, and to see more photos of this experience visit HERE where they begin.

I prefer life at a very close range.

Here is a photo that I came across last night while browsing through my pictures trying to decide which ones to take with me to Panama seeing as typically host families in foreign countries enjoy seeing a representation of "life back home." Although i don't believe i will be taking this one with me, I none the less still very much enjoy it and decided it merited a post. I took this around mid October last year on a cool morning right before Brandon, Ben and I headed out for one of our best hikes of last year.

The second image here is the original photo. The first photo, clearly, is zoomed in around the middle.

Square dancing is maaaarvelous

The following photos represent a beautiful April evening on the rooftop deck of a Fayetteville resident where we Square Danced the night away to live fiddle music. I really enjoy the first photo for the quality that we look like ghost square dancers. Included also in this post is a video from the night where you can see that we range from first time dancers to those who have squared for years. A very nice time indeed!

I have to apologize for not getting the entire video of that particular square, they do tend to be pretty long though.

Hello All!

Well I am finally going to be doing something with my time besides sitting on my couch, waiting tables and commuting between the diamond state and Chicago. I'm going to PANAMA for the Peace Corps!! Woo-Hoo!!

I leave April 19th so look for updates on my new Latina life in the coming years. For constant photo updates visit my smugmug at www.tease.smugmug.com

Hasta luego!!!

Thank you Tanner

Laugh! Laugh! Laugh! Laugh!

Lake Wilson

Lake Wilson can be a very relaxing place indeed.

A night at the Starlight Skatium

Fayetteville's newest Roller Skating Rink! See more here.

Sledding, round 3!

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know I'm slow, but it's scary out there on that big fun steep long hill!

XNA-Sleepover edition

Welcome to XNA! I think besides the fact that I have to wait an extra 12 hours to arrive at ORD, the only thing I'm really unhappy about is that the airport bar O'Laughlin's is closed. Don't worry, I entertained myself in one of the other airport shops(there are 4 vendors total in the place including O'Laughlin's) by reading up on the only material provided: how to be skinny without trying and how to communicate with non-christians. Hhhmm....where am I again?

The snow outside
The ice on the window

My sandwich doing it's best to keep cold by the window and watching out for the snow plow man just below.

Heeeeeello Ice and Snow Storm of 2010

Look! It's a dead mouse!

Gracias a Suelo, El Gato Diablo.