Month of March

The month of March was a busy one for us, so busy that we didn't have time to do a single blog entry.  We had two sets of visitors - a newly arrived Peace Corps couple and also dear friends from New Jersey.  Heather spent a week teaching the new Peace Corps trainees in the Teaching English group.  Steve was busy making stoves before the dry season ends in early April.

Our first task was to prepare the house for our visitors.  We only have one bedroom, so our guests sleep in the living/dining area.  We decided to make a bamboo room divider to give them more privacy.

First we asked our neighbor Andrés to cut us a couple of 30 ft bamboo poles.  He charged us 25 cents for each one.

Andrés felled and trimmed the poles

Steve learned how to split the bamboo into quarters with a machete.  

 Steve nailed the bamboo slats together and Heather sewed the cloth backing.   Here is the finished product.

Our first guests were Max and Lorraine, a young couple from Wisconsin. They are Peace Corps trainees, and had only been in Panama for two or three weeks.  They spent four nights with us, learning how Peace Corps volunteers live in the field.

We showed them the sights of Chepo.  We hiked up the Alto del Higo, the highest mountain in our province, to get a view of the Pacific.  We swam in two different rivers, met lots of local kids, and gave them a tour of the school.  On our hike we saw more leaf cutter ants, and got a good photo of them busy at work.  

I don't know how they manage to carry those leaves.  It looks like they are only using one leg to balance the leaf on their head.  Interestingly enough, they don't eat the leaves.  They bring them back to their nest, where they feed the leaves to a fungus.  They eat the fungus.

Our next visitors were Dave and Jani.  Dave and Steve worked together at Princeton Day School for many years.  We only had a week, but we managed to pack a lot of activities into the short time we had with them.  

On their first evening in Panama City we were lucky to catch the sunset in the old quarter.

One of the highlights of the trip was bird watching at the Rainforest Discovery Center.  They had a 100 foot tower which got us above the trees.

After a short visit to Chepo, we headed to the beach.  We got an email from the Peace Corps warning us that there would be high waves.  They were right!  Steve and Dave had a great time body surfing, though they did have to let the bigger waves go by at times. 

Steve and Dave during a lull in the waves

The hotel grounds were beautiful!

Their visit was all too short, but very memorable.

The next week Heather stayed on in Panama City for training sessions with the new Peace Corps recruits, while Steve went back to Chepo to make as many stoves as possible before the rainy season.  Here are a few pictures of the process.

That's it for now!

Steve and Heather