LugoLounge » Live From Panama

Panama week 3 (a little late)

Lounge — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 10:12:59 +0000

Buenas.
Just came back from the Darien (rugged, forested province adjacent to Colombia) sans my compa?ero Sasha. He?s in the hospital. Some stomach virus or kidney stones. I was pretty lucky. Seems our adventure was so-so. We helped a PCV apply cement to his new latrine, we hiked a couple of km along the mountains surveying distance & elevation for possible aqueduct, and played pool & drank Atlas cerveza. After that was over we went back to good old Santa Rita for some home cooked meals. Sasha was back from the hospital-seems like it was food poisoning, since he didnt wash his star fruits. We had a few birthdays to celebrate and we went to Leonardos for pizza drinks and dancing-woohoo. The following day there was another birthday and more food,cake, and dancing. Things are just getting better and better.
Haven\’t seen any scorpions, bats, tarantulas, or snakes yet but i?ll keep everyone posted. Someone else has to use the computer now so I hope to talk to you soon. I hope everyone is well. I have phone cards, so I plan on making a few calls. The letter writing campaign will begin once I am assigned to my post.
Lots of lovin?

Chichas and bochinches (week 2)

Lounge — Sun, 25 Jul 2004 18:30:58 +0000

Hello all. Miss the hell out of everyone.
So life in the tropics is shweet! Getting high on chicha de whatever. See chicha is juice. Not just juice but sweetened juice. Were talking fistful o sugar. Yeah! There is chicha de nancy ( Nancy is a yellow berry the size of an olive that grows plentiful on trees around these here parts, and are picked and placed in water, usually in a 2 liter bottle of Coke), chicha de naranja, and my favorite chicha de guanabana ( a green balloon-sized fruit that tastes better than a pear-trust me). Oh, and don\’t even bother trying to find 100% OJ…not gonna happen. So I just drink black-as-bitch coffee every morning.

So i will be away for a few days to the Darien-the province that borders Columbia (god damn Colombians). I hear there’s really nothing there, certainly no beach, but it will be interesting to visit the wild frontier of the country enjoying my 31st Birthday on Sunday, July 18. A five hour bus ride along the rugged unpaved Pan-American highway, along heavily secured checkpoints. I will be with a fellow PCV, while other members of the group will be going to various beach communities.
Life is good. My host mom cooks, cleans, washes, and gets to hear me gab. And I get the daily bochinche (thats gossip for you whities). Oh yeah! And we had our swimming test. We got to swim around in our clothing for ten minutes. Fun! Then we took off our pants and used them as floating devices. Yeah! Oh! And were raising chickens. More later.
Ciao from Panama with 50% more love.

Panama Week 1

Lounge — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 12:26:43 +0000

Hello and greeting all from Panama.

Writing to you from a busted up computer in la chorrera in Panama province. well im still alive. only getting fatter from all the crap that they cook here. everything is fried. But I never really turn any food down.

Well lets see. I was late for the flight to Miami, but not a problem as i was able to take a later flight. i was fashilably late to the beatiful omni collonade hotel in coral springs where we had our staging sessions. i got to meet cool people and hang out and swim and eat cuban food every night. then it was time to leave for panama.

we arrived at the City of Knowledge, which was the former american bases. we were there for a week in the bungalows. we played uno and dominoes n ate. there are 34 of us divided into community economic development, rural health, and environmental health which i am a part of.

now we are in santa rita with our host families. i have my own room and no pillow. the water runs on a very rare occasion so i take bucket baths and i also use the latrine in the outhouse. we have two classes every day. my host family serves me breakfast and then its off to tech training where some of us learn how to make a compost. today was my turn to turn over the shit. the steaming pile of shit.

classes are at the shool by the way. other times we learn how to make a garden. thats our current project. then we get to start and manage a chicken farm where we get to raise the cute chikees and then kill those fuckers that keep me up all night. Oh and there are mangy street dogs everywhere.

there are lots of chinese people also who run the grocery stores. where am i. oh yeah. taking malaria medication. yeah. MF. malaria fridays.

woohoo. making lots of friends. they all think im funny and i hang out with everyone. i visited almost all my friends at their host family homes. we danced traditional music and drank chicha…ewww soo good. and i just love picking mangos and star fruits and quenepas-or mamemos as they call them here. well i have to go. as you can see by this email its a little hastily written but where going to have pizza-owww. so im having fun and laughing as always. thanks for everything and i miss everyone.