Still training

We´re in week 6 of training now. I just found a computer in Santiago after we spent last week in Cerro Inglesias. It´s an indigenous communittee up in the mountains. The Environmetal Health Aspirantes went there and we each stayed with a host family. I stayed in a house with a thatched roof. It was all pretty much one room and there were a few kids. I found out that one of the sons gave up his bed so I could stay there. Here is a pic and you can see my ye-ye bed on the right under the mosquito net.

I showed up to the site with a fever and threw up a couple times. I can not stay healthy. The first night I was trying to tell the host family I just need rest by saying ´necessito desayuno.´ They looked at me funny so I says ´necessito desayuno´again. They said in the morning. I was really confused until the next day I learned desayuno was breakfast. They thought I really wanted some breakfast.

While I was there I ate mostly boiled bananas and rice. We saw a lot of kids with the fat stomachs and it was kind of sad. But I realized that we were just these goofy gringos that had a lot of weird stuff. I mean, they had been living this way their whole lives and I even saw things like the mom chewing out one kid for a bad grade. This is their life. Outside of their house was this insane view, and they had no idea how beautiful it was.

You can see the Pacific ocean with some islands toward the back. Here is another picture of the daughter of the house holding the parrot they had that would not shut up, even at night. She also seemed to do a lot of the cooking there. In the forground is a cup with a ´c´on it that was the most amazing cup of hot cocoa that I have ever had. They take the beans right off a tree there.

They always fed me first and way more than they would eat. They were very generous and the children were all very curious of the USA.

I also found out a couple weeks ago where I will be spending the next two years of my life. My site is in the Colon province. The city of Colon is the port city on the Panama Canal on the Carribean side. I will be in between there and Panama City in the beautiful Chagres National Parque. My communitte is Indeginous and they are called the Embera. I´ll write more about my site later, for last here is a picture of the day that we had our site announcements. It was a day full of anticipation and excitement. The guy talking on the mic is Country Director Peter.

You can see the map of Panama in the background where they would announce our sites one by one and put our pictures on the map at our sites.