You know you are a Panamanian peace corps volunteer when...

You know your a Panamanian peace corps volunteer when... 1. You are so jealous that the person next to you on the bus is eating fried chicken at 8:42 in the morning. 2. You start incorporating "thanks be to god" in daily conversations. 3. You thrill at the arrival of packages from the united states that include clothing, topatío hot sauce, girl scout thin mints, red vines, and bounce dryer sheets(!)  4. You get super excited about finding .25 cents on the ground. Or if you drop .25 cents search until you find it.  5. You travel 7 hours to hang out with friends.   6. You lose your ego and are not beyond asking for help when you need it, also referred to as "not beyond begging" for financial support for projects and accept support from sleazy local  politicians.  7. Although you didn't find Panamanians particularly attractive initially, you begin to find them attractive as more and more months pass. "So what if he doesn't have teeth?" And so what if Panamanian relationships are influenced by intense telenovelas? The peace corps Doctor Lourdes refers to these new sentiments as "jungle goggles"  8. You completely forget about holidays back home, dude I totally forgot about St. Patricks Day. Oops.  9. You eat anything, including scary looking fruit that a random man passes to you on the bus. And eat more, as he continues to hand you more... 10. Did I mention loving family members and friends so much more for taking the time to send packages?!  This list really makes me laugh. I hope others find it funny. I think humor is so important for development work. And for life. I remember asking Paul Farmer ( humanitarian that started partners in health, also Tracy Kidder wrote Mountains beyond Mountains about his work) what characteristics he thought were absolutely necessary for someone working in development work and he said patience, humility, and humor.  Success story: Saturday night I held my first community activity, a movie night at the school. The movie night was our first fundraiser for the schools recycling project. We showed Avatar! I wanted a movie with an environmental context, not realizing that i was indoctrinating my community members. If anyone has read the articles about the Ngobe indigenous protests about mining in Panama and hydroelectric construction, the parallel between the movie and Panama was actually pretty coincidental. Anyways, we raised 22 dollars! Over 65 community members attended the movie night. It was awesome. I asked both of my counterparts for their support, one of which is a teacher and works with me on the environmental committee and the other is the president of the reforestation group. It meant a lot to me that they both helped. Also my host sister collected the .25 cent entry. I am so happy that it worked out. The cable on the projector wasn't working all day and then miraculously worked Saturday night. Thank you universe. I look forward to hosting another movie night in the near future, just as soon as I am able to find the new cables for the projector.  I just finished Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, highly recommend it. The story of the extraordinary opportunities that the Beatles, Bill Gates, hockey players born in January, KIPP school, etc. We are products of parentage, patronage, and the world in which we grow up and the opportunities that that world gives us. It's super good, please read it.  This last week, I spent four days in a good friends community. Beth had been coordinating with community members to build compost latrines (also known as outhouses). In four days beth had planned on building 4 latrines. Next week she will be building 5 latrines! Essentially shes kicking ass.  Shes also coordinating with Global Brigades, which offers week trips to university students from the united states and Canada to come to Panama. During the week the students participate in projects in rural Darien. The students helped build the latrines on Wednesday and thursday while the technicians taught them to lay the bricks, pour a cement floor, seal the walls with cement, cut rebar and wood, etc. The global brigades students also all contribute 100 dollars to the community, imagine 4,500 dollars being donated to a rural community for community projects ---it's incredible. And they brought in the resources for all the latrines and were paying the technicians. Global brigades also provides communities with medical brigades, environmental brigades, and business brigades. The only bummer is at the moment they are only working in the Darien... Thats all for now,  Hasta pronto, Sonia