Thanksgiving!

The big event of the past week was the Thanksgiving party for all Peace Corps volunteers in Panama.  160 of the 200 volunteers made the trip to Cerro Punta, in the province of Chiriquí, at the base of Volcán Barú, the highest mountain in Panama at 11,300 ft.  Most of the group stayed at the resort of Los Quetzales.  We, however, stayed at a hotel down the road as Los Quetzales filled up before we got our request in (we were in the States.)  It was a good time to get together with our training group and meet new volunteers from other sectors.  Here is a photo of most of the volunteers from the Azuero peninsula (two provinces - Los Santos and Herrera.)

The hotel was the perfect venue for our get together.  Here is the room divider in the restaurant.  You could pick a banana whenever you liked!

A large team of the Peace Corps volunteers was needed to make a Thanksgiving dinner for 160 people.  Here are a few people getting the turkeys ready.  We had four 26 lb. turkeys.

Here is the final product.  It sure tasted good!  

We also had ham, mac and cheese for the vegetarians, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, candied squash, green bean casserole, salad and rolls.  The desserts were chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin sheet cake and apple crisp.  It was wonderful.  Everyone had all they could eat (and then some).

The Los Quetzales resort had some wonderful cabins way up in the rain forest.  Some of them were over an hour walk from the lodge.  There were jeeps to take people up, but they were only allowed one free trip a day.  Here is a picture of one of the highest cabins.  It had no electricity, but the location was exotic.

The weather was not good enough to climb the volcano, but we did get a chance to hike in the jungle and cross a river several times.
  

Heather and our guide Ramón

Savi crosses with Ramón's help

We stayed in a hotel a few miles away.  It was nice to be able to retreat to peace and quiet when the party got going in earnest. 

The grounds of our hotel

Flowers along the road

Parade time!

Back in Chepo, we had already celebrated the separation of Panama from Colombia (1903) on Nov. 3 with a parade.  On November 28th we celebrated the independence from Spain (1821).  Panama was still part of Colombia, but it was no longer under Spanish control, so that called for another parade.  Actually, there were two parades:  one típico on Nov 25 with folkloric costumes, and one cívico on Nov 28 with the school band and color guard.   Of course we had to elect another queen - the fourth one of the year.

Here are a few pictures:

The queen on típico parade day

The queen on civic parade day

Of course we had to dress up in our típico outfits!

Another queen - of the graduates

Youngsters dressed up too!

This girl needs practice in posing!

We'll head off into the sunset for another week!  This picture is from the opposite end of town from our house.

Planting Trees

This past Thursday the third and sixth grade (combined) classroom, taught by Maestro (teacher) Raymundo, had a tree planting project.  Each student got a seedling and helped plant it.  The older kids got to clear a space with a machete and dig a hole with a post-hole digger.  The younger kids placed their trees in the hole.

The sixth grade boys with their tools

Oliver, Humberto and Anthony swing their machetes to clear around trees planted last year.

The girls also took a turn swinging the machetes as well as picking up trash.

Jenifer and Mabelis chop weeds while Jessica and Barbara clean up.

Claribel plants her tree.

Claribel, Maria Elena and Adelina pose for the camera.

More trash collection

On Friday we accompanied some students on their way home from school.  They usually walk because there are too many of them for the transport (and it's cheaper).  We walked with them for a hour and a half to the town of El Toro (the bull), where we met with the father of one of the students who has been invited to take part in a Peace Corps seminar.  The kids were in a light-hearted mood as they went home for the weekend.  We passed two tarantulas and a snake in the road.  Luckily they were all dead!

  

Monday morning coming to school - there is only one truck leaving the town of Leones in the morning.  If you miss it, it's a two hour walk uphill.  There are eight kids on the bumper this morning, with lots more inside - probably more than twenty sitting on the twelve seats.  Several kids have only one foot on the bumper.  Amazingly, no one ever falls off, even though they go up some pretty steep hills. 

Blazing the Trail

This past weekend we decided to do some further work on a trail in our mountain preserve which connects one group of petroglyphs with another.  The petroglyphs are remnants of the pre-Columbian tribes.  They smeared some sort of mud mixture on boulders and made their drawings. More than 500 years later the drawings still survive.   One large petroglyph is in the deep jungle with no trail to it.  Our mission was to create and mark a connecting trail.  Steve had done some exploration in August, so we knew more or less where to put the trail.

Steve blazed the trail with his machete and Heather tied markers on the branches.

The next day we decided take another trip to the Alto del Higo, the highest spot in our province of Herrera.  They recently erected a new 100 ft high antenna, and we wanted to see the views from there.

On the way uphill, we passed an old fence tied together with vines.  It's still holding up well!

It's a long way down there!

From the top you can see our house (red arrow on the right)

You also get a good view of the Pacific.  Isla Cébaco is on the left.  At the far right you can see part of Lion Island and next to it, the much smaller Three Sisters.

On the way down we passed a HUGE anthill.  Luckily the leaf cutter ants that inhabit it aren't attracted to humans.

After we got home, the fish mobile drove by.  We bought red snapper for $2 a pound and some big shrimp.  The transport drove by and the driver stopped for some fish too.

That's a big fish!  We bought smaller ones.

Recently many of the local townspeople finished a course in sewing.  They learned how to make patterns and sew clothing for children.  Those who completed the course received brand new sewing machines.

Last week we walked to a nearby village with our teacher friend Ormelis.  Here are a couple of pictures from the trip.

Heather wanted to take one of these home!

This parrot was captured from the wild

Another day we went to a student's house in a small village to celebrate her birthday.  We took along teacher Ormelis and a student Luis, who boards at Chepo and is from the city.  He was posing for a picture with a pig.  The pig made a sudden motion, and Luis took off like a rocket!

The city boy meets his match in the campo.

That's it for this week!  Please send us an email with how you are doing.  We love hearing from you all.

Independence Day in Panama

November 3, 1903 was the date when Panama got their independence from Colombia, with a little help from US military forces.  It didn't hurt that the treaty to give the US permission to build the Panama Canal was signed two weeks later.  The treaty gave the US control over a strip of land 10 miles on either side of the canal for an unlimited period of time.

Celebrating the big day

This holiday took several days of preparation.  On Wednesday, October 31, there were no classes in school.  The students worked to clean the classrooms and decorate them in a patriotic way.

They flooded the classroom with a hose and swept it out

A typical classroom bulletin board

This is how the English classroom looked:

One group of students even cleaned out the bus stop at the top of the hill.  Afterwards they went to the Bailey house porch for relaxation and refreshments.

Later that day they took one of the bulls from the school grounds off to be slaughtered.  He would taste delicious on Saturday!  They didn't have a loading chute, so the young bull had to be convinced to go in the back of the truck by men with ropes. He really didn't want to go.  We stayed a safe distance away!

Thursday had a normal class day, but on Friday there were no classes, as everyone had to be in school the whole day on Saturday.  Most of the boarding students went home or to town for the day, but we took a group of about 35 of them to the swimming hole, along with three other adults.

We are all trying to stay on a submerged log

Heather and Leopoldo enjoy the water

Then came the big day.  Everyone dressed up in their traditional Azuero clothing (except Steve, who only had the sandals).

Heather with teachers Yolanda and Maria Elena

Steve and the school director Pacifico 

Heather

Heather and Luis in their tipico shirts

After a ceremony in the school, the next event was a parade through town.

The drum corps played energetically

Yeimi and Yohanis pose for the camera

This little spectator shows his tipico outfit

The color guard

Heather poses with Senor Rosa (short for Rosalino), who claims to be the biggest flower in Chepo.  Note Heather's hairpiece, called a tembleque.

After the parade, students and townspeople headed back to the school to feast on the ornery young bull.  He was very tasty.  

Then came the traditional task of climbing a 50 ft. greased pole. At the top was the Panamanian flag and a bag of goodies.  Whoever climbed the pole first also received a cash reward of $30.

First they had to grease the pole and set it in place

The school boys teamed up to make the climb

The weather that day was not rainy for the parade for the first time in several years.  The rain, however, began to fall soon after the boys started their quest, making the task even more difficult.

Whoops!  Let's start over

After the boys had tried for a couple of hours, the next event started.  We had to decide who would be the queen of the graduating class.  The winner was decided by counting up how much money each girl raised through selling raffle tickets.

And the winner is... Delfilia!

We were given the honor of pinning the sash on the newly crowned queen.

Now, back at the pole, the boys had made more progress.  Eventually they would rub off all the grease on their bodies and be able to climb to the top.  The whole process took about five hours, and left the ten boys who shared the job (and the reward!) in a state of total exhaustion.

Keep going!

Sunday, November 4th was Flag Day. After a brief ceremony at the school, the band and color guard headed off to the nearby town of Las Minas for a repeat of their Saturday performance.  It was quite a weekend, and the whole school was given Monday and Tuesday off to recuperate.