One Year

Sorry I haven´t posted anything in a while. I got lazy and then the internet in my site went out and I don´t know when or if it will come back. I´ve got some pictures to put up but I don´t have them with me so I´ll try and get around to that next time I´ve got internet access. Yesterday was May 16 which means that I´ve been here for a whole year now. Honestly, it hardy feels like I´ve spent much time at all in Panama.

I´ve been keeping busy in my site by teaching environmental education in the school. The director gave me an hour for each class every week for all the grades (kinder - 8th). The kids love me, but I think that has more to do with me being tall and white, and less to do with my teaching ability. It´s my first time teaching kids and doing it in a forign language doesn´t help. I try to bring in live animals whenever I can. Panamanians don´t really care for most wildlife so I´m trying to explain to the kids why they shouldn´t kill everything that moves. So far I´ve brought in a lizard and a snake, both of which were a big hit.

I went on another little island hopping trip. This trip turned out to be a bit more exciting than the last trip, a little too much excitement actually. I managed to cut myself again, but this time it wasn´t so bad that I needed stitches. However, that was nothing compared to our boat almost getting destroyed by some pretty fierce waves. We had just eaten dinner and were sitting around the campfire when we heard our ´captain´yelling for help. We ran down the beach to find the boat half underwater and getting hammered by the surf. Miraculously we managed to pull it on shore and get it running the next day.

The new group of conservation and agriculture volunteers has arrived and they´re currently in training. I´ve been asked to give the venomous plants and animals presentation to the new group. I´m pretty excited to help out and meet all the new people. I offered to bring in some live snakes to show the difference between venomous and nonvenomous snakes, but the training director didn´t like the idea. He said he didn´t want to scare the new volunteers, but I got the feeling it was him who was more worried about the snakes.

There´s a woman with the Smithsonian who researches snakes here in Panama. Next weekend I´m going to go to the park where she conducts here research to help catch snakes. It´s sort of an early birthday present to myself. Leah and I are going to spend a few nights in the cabin there and do some nightime exploring for snakes and other wildlife.

I think that´s about all I have for now. I´ll write more and put up the pictures when I get a chance.

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