Catching the Rooster

Our morning Spanish classes have the advantage of being in the patio of the house where we live.  There is shade, and it is usually delightfully cool there.  There is one disadvantage, however, of this spot.  There are 17 chickens and one rooster about 15 feet away from us.  On Friday the rooster suddenly started crowing in the middle of our class.  Our teacher, Rolando, raised his voice and attempted to continue. However, the rooster outdid him in both volume and persistence.  Finally Rolando couldn't take it any more.  "Let's grab the rooster!", he called as we all headed for the chicken coop.  Evidently if you separate the gallo from his gallinas he will stop his noise.  I entered the coop with Rolando, Señora Rita, our host mother, and one other PC trainee.  I soon had the rooster cornered.  He was trapped in the corner with a tree trunk on the third side.  All I had to do was grab him, but I had no clue as to how to do that.  I thought of grabbing the neck, but I didn't want to hurt him or get pecked on the hand.  He made a break for it and I let him go with a half-hearted attempt at a grab.  Austin, the other PC trainee, failed equally.  It was obvious that Rolando was going to have to do it.  I herded the rooster over to him and, sure enough, he grabbed it by the wing.  He handed it to Señora Rita, who flung it over the fence into a side pen and that was that - back to class!

Rolando gets the rooster as Austin looks on

Mama Rita takes care of "el gallo"

Saturday Night Fever!

What is there to do in a town of 2000 people on a Saturday night?  Evidently there is quite a lot, if last Saturday was anything to judge by.   Our first stop was the rodeo on the edge of town.  The event of the night was calf roping.  The object was just to get the noose tight around the neck of the calf - it wasn't necessary to tie it up.  The first three we saw missed completely, and we thought we were in for amateur hour.  Soon the best of the lineup came, and we saw people finish in three or four seconds. The top time was a stunning 1.97 seconds.

To accompany this was some typical Panamanian music.  These guys were right from the campo, and their music was lively.

We eventually tore ourselves away from the rodeo and headed for the center of town, where the athletic facility is an indoor soccer area with a cement floor and chain-link fence for walls.  That night it was taken over by a gigantic bingo game attended by most of the town.  One of the men in the town needed an operation, and didn't have the money.  Everyone pitched in and bought food and bingo cards to raise money.  They didn't announce how much they raised, but it was a significant amount.

Heather at the bingo table with Miranda, Nate and Austin

Heading back home, we found that next door four Peace Corps trainees with much more energy than we had were doing a P90X workout in the back yard.  No thanks!

One last activity that we didn't partake of was a huge birthday party about a block away.  They were blasting the music until 3 a.m., but no one called the authorities to complain. Needless to say we didn't sleep a whole lot that night.