Story Hour

It's summer in Panama, and the school kids are all on vacation.  Actually it's the dry season, but they call it summer here.  The dry season lasts from January through March, but the kids only get January and February off from school.  Heather has been having "Story Hour" weekday mornings on our front porch with the neighborhood kids.  She reads children's books in Spanish and English.  The kids get a chance to learn more English and to learn about American culture.  The books in Spanish are mostly translations of American books, so they see kids doing things they do in the US, which are often quite different from here.  For example, there are no bathtubs in Panama.  Heather had to explain to the kids that every American household has one, even though we mostly take showers like the Panamanians do.  Also, in the US we give horses names and put horseshoes on them.  In Panama they do neither one.

Heather starts off the hour reading to the children.

After a while they can choose books to read (or just look at the pictures) on their own.

Michael and Angel read their books

Notice that Michael doesn't put down his slingshot to read a book :)

A couple of weekends ago we had a visit from three Peace Corps volunteers in the nearby province of Los Santos.  We started off with a dip in the local swimming hole.

Sally and Emily enjoy the water

Little Jose found a half of a soccer ball and thought it made a nice hat.  

Back at the house, there was pizza and guitar playing.

Emily has a travel guitar and Chelsea plays her ukelele

Of course we had to take them up the tower at the Alto del Higo to see the view.

Chelsea enjoys the view from the top.

I'm flying!

Sally and Emily climb the tower

Here are the five of us on the way down.

We had a wonderfully sunny day as we descended to a nearby village.

We passed the houses of a couple of students in the Chepo school.  This is how they store their machetes.  Note that every Panamanian house has several.  

In the back yard they had a trapiche, which is used to squeeze the juice out of sugar cane.  Usually a horse walks around in a circle to run it, but today Heather did the honors.  

Here is a closeup of the apparatus.  The two rollers turn and the stalks of sugar cane are fed into the interlocking teeth.  

We continued down to the river, where we crossed the suspension bridge and hopped into the cool water for a refreshing swim.

We ended up in the nearby town of El Toro.  Unfortunately we missed the pickup truck transport home, as he left early.  We were lucky enough to get a ride home from the representante (sort of mayor) of El Toro.  It was a fun ride.

Emily snaps a picture of herself, Steve and Sally

Later that day Annie, our regional leader, showed up to liven the party.  We were sad to see them leave on Sunday morning.

That's it for now…

Steve and Heather