Graduation

In December the Chepo school year ended and the ninth graders all graduated.  Since the Chepo school only goes up to ninth grade, they will have to go to other towns to continue their education.  The nearest town with a grade 10-12 school is about an hour away; others are two to three hours away.  Most students will stay with relatives, but some will have to board in the school from Monday to Friday like they do in Chepo.  A few will stay in Chepo to do the night school, which only meets four days a week for three hours a day and has only one teacher to teach all the subjects. Heather taught the English classes for the night school during one trimester last year and will continue in the coming school year.  Occasionally a night school student will go on to college, but the majority stay to live in Chepo.  The majority of students who finish grade 12 outside of Chepo will go on to college.  Very few of those will come back to live in Chepo, as the only job opportunities for college educated people in Chepo are the school and the health center. 

The school year in Panama runs from late February to the middle of December.  The students have summer vacation from December through February.  This may sound strange, as Panama is north of the equator and has shorter days now, just like the US.  We only have two seasons here - dry and wet.  They call the dry season "summer".  It runs from late December to early April.  Last year we were told that it didn't rain at all for the months of January through March.  The rest of the year is called "winter", even though it doesn't get colder, just wetter.  The rain increases gradually from April to a maximum in October, then eases off a bit in November.  The school vacation schedule makes sense, as the kids have off in the dry season when they can enjoy being outdoors more.  

The graduation ceremony took place in our open-air cancha, which is used for sports and school assemblies.  The students dressed in their school uniforms and sat in the middle of the audience.

After the ceremony, the families gathered for pictures.  Here is one family.  Notice that the mother doesn't have brown eyes, like most Panamanians.  Our province of Herrera was one of the first colonized by the Spaniards and there are lots of light-skinned descendants of the original settlers. 

Digna and her family

Here we are with the happy graduate:

These girls are all dressed up to watch the graduation:

Yeimy, Noelis and Mayelis

Also in December was the first communion for eight young Chepanos.  Below are the same three girls in their first communion robes.  

Yeimy, Mayelis and Noelis

Here is another family of our neighbors.  Johnny had his first communion, and his sisters Johannys and Alexandra show off their dresses made by their mother Janet in her sewing class.  The girls love to pose for the camera.

We often go to the local swimming hole with the neighborhood kids when the weather is good.  We didn't go at all in September, October or November, so the kids were excited as the weather got better in December.  Our friend Mitomo, who lives in Chepo and is a member of JICA, the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps, came with us one day.  Mitomo has a really good camera, and he took these pictures:

Isaac and Denio

Ebelio, Jair, and Heber

Ebelio in mid-air 

Oliver

Here is Mitomo in a shot taken with his camera.

David and Melissa visited here over Christmas and New Year, so we were too busy having fun with them to do a blog entry.  We will catch up soon with photos of our activities with them.

Steve and Heather