To write well, you have to write what you know. This is what I know, I am 9 months into my Peace Corps service in Panama and I am loving it. I feel a little guilty about starting my blog now, but it's better late than never.  I am a CEC volunteer, community environmental conservation "extension worker." Which is a fancy way of saying that I teach environmental science to anyone who will listen to me. So far, I have taught kindergardeners, first graders, fourth graders, and fifth graders about photosynthesis, technology, endangered animals, recycling, reusing, the solar system( because of teacher requests), and more. We have also watched several planet earth episodes, apollo 13, and avatar (which the kids loved). After my first three months in site, I held a community meeting and based on my analysis and community members feedback my community members would like my help with home gardens and compost projects, a reforestation project, environmental education for adults, and a better way to deal with trash. My job over the next year and a half will include environmental education at the school and encouraging community based environmental projects.  Ohh, and whatever else is asked of me---which can be the most random things, I will provide more of an explanation about this in future blogs.

  A brief teaching story, I had received 50 scholastic Spanish books from the US embassy and I was reading to a class of kindergardeners about a baby polar bear at a zoo in Germany that a veterinarian had nursed through it's first year.  This one very funny kid, Gabriel, kept interrupting with his own story about some drunk that had passed out on his porch the night before. Suffice it to say after listening to Gabriel's  funny/gossip story, we finally got back to "Knuts", the baby polar bears story.  Last week, while I was visiting Bocas del Toro, my sister Elena and I went on a snorkeling trip with two Germans and I was telling them how I had used Knut's story with the kindergardeners and they loved to hear that a German zoo story had made it all the way to panama and was included  in my kindergardeners environmental science class.

  At the moment, panama's schools are on summer vacation. And my reforestation group is relaxing over the summer as well. Which means I have a lot of free time. I recently read a book called "Mighty be our Powers" written by Lehmah, a Liberian peacemaker who started a huge women's movement in Liberia. The book was published in 2011 and I highly recommend it.

  I am currently reading A Path with Heart by Jack Cornfield, a Buddhist monk that encourages meditation and finding your own spiritual path. here are some messages of his that I have highlighted so far,

One great teacher explained it this way, "the trouble with you is that you think you have time. We don't know how much time we have.  What would it be like to live with the knowledge that this may be our last year, last week, last day?In light of this question, we can choose a path with heart. " -Jack Cornfield.

"The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are the moments when we touch one another, when we are there in the most attentive or caring way.  Mother Teresa put it in this way, 'In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love'."  - Jack Cornfield.

My intent for this blog is to share my experience with family and friends back home. I hope to keep it light and funny. I must warn you all that I have developed a darker sense of humor so if I start to share too many dark stories or jokes, please call me out.  I also hope to write often enough that you all won't be begging for an update months from now.  This will hopefully become an artistic outlet for me, as improvisational performances used to be in college.   

I may get carried away with my concerns about development, such as positionality in the Peace Corps.  Feel free to share any comments.

Also I will probably write in Spanglish.

Bueno pues, hasta pronto,

Sonia