Happy New Year!

Coming up on the new year, I was reflecting on where I was last year at this time, and it´s strange to think how different my life was. I´m looking forward to what this upcoming Panamanian year will provide/offer/spring on me. It´s been an interesting four months already, so it´ll be amazing to see what happens when I get under way working in my community.

I´ve been remiss at adding photos to the blog, I´m aware. But I have a whole bunch that I´ll update when I head into Panama City this weekend. The network connection is just so slow out here that I don´t have the time to upload all my photos. It´ll be much faster to do it all at once this weekend. I promise there will be photos!

The holidays haven´t felt like the holidays here. Mostly because instead of wearing sweaters and eating cookies, I´m wearing flip flops and (still) eating rice. Not much changes for the holidays here. Which means that I haven´t had time or reason to miss home, which is good. We´ve entered "summer" in Panama, which means that it´s windier and cooler at night. Which is a blessing. I´ve had some nights recently where I can actually say I got a little cold under just my one sheet. "Cold" is a relative term here.

What have I been doing lately...? I´m learning how to pasear (walk around and visit) with my neighbors and friends like a Panamanian. I´ve paseared to everyones house at least once now, which sounds really easy to do when there are only 27 houses, but it´s hard to do in another language when you´re not entirely certain what the protocol is. I´ve figured it out though, and now I´m pretty comfortable walking into anyones house, sitting down and talking with them. It´s harder than it sounds, I promise.

Other than that, I´ve been hanging around and working with my family a lot. We went out to Puerto Lara (a nearby town where my friend Karen lives) for Christmas Eve day for a soccer tournament. That was an experience. I witnessed the Wounaan´s tradition for celebrating quincenera (a girl´s 15th birthday celebration): apparently they get the birthday girl absolutely plastered (the girl in Puerto Lara was so drunk she couldn´t hold her head up or keep her eyes open), then dance her around while friends and relatives support her physically. It was actually very disturbing for me to see someone, much less a fifteen year old girl, that drunk. I talked to some of my community members, and they said that they do that as well during Semana Santa. That upset me a little, but after talking one-on-one to some of the parents, I realized that they don´t all participate. Some of them recognize that it´s not safe or smart to inebriate a 15 year old to the point of passing out. I´m hopeful that I can have that discussion with most of the parents, because it was very jarring for me. I may not be able to stop it, but I can at least try to discourage the forced intoxication. Alcohol abuse is already a pretty prevalent problem throughout Panama, so I do what I can to set a good example.

Tomorrow will be another big party, and I´m having a community meeting with the women during the day, so it´s a big day for me. I have to prepare for that, and prepare for all night partying and drinking. It should be fun! I´ll take pictures and get them up this weekend.

That´s all I have to report right now. Happy New Year to all! I love you and miss you all, every day!