With One Week Behind Us

Hello all,
We are currently in training and are happy, healthy and safe. Our days start out with our host mom (Marta) making us breakfast in the morning (this can include anything from sliced hotdogs with plantains, to a tomato and lettuce sandwich with some kind of Panamanian mayo). we then are off to class. last week we had our language classes in the morning and our technical training in the afternoons, with an hour off to go home for a home cooked lunch. We usually finish with classes around 5 or 5:30pm and then we head back home for dinner, some spanish conversation with our family (just a mom and a dad- Nicanor y Marta) and some spanish television, and of course homework.
If it didn´t seem so by the brevity of different subjects in the day, trust us the day is packed and we barely have any time to ourselves to think or have free. We have had the opportunity to meet a lot of volunteers that are currently serving in country and they have all shared with us their feelings about how long and intensive these ten weeks of training can be. We are excited about what we have learned (composting, reforestation, MACHETE WEILDING!!) and are glad to have week one behind us. We get to see each other about half of the day each day and we are very glad to have one another. Our host mom´s humor is great and has made for a very comfortable host family environment. We will probably continue to have challenges in contacting folks very frequently and we are working on establishing a more consistant means of communication.
Some other things that we have done since we have been here have been that the first day we were were we went to bingo with all of our families. The community takes this very seriously, and we were in the open-air community center for over 2.5 hours. It was a great way to start our time out there, as it provided an activity for us to do to break up the akwardness of arriving to live in a house with a family who doesn´t speak the same language. Monday night while we were here we went to a host family house of a friend of ours and learned how to make öjaldras, or basically fry-bread. Tuesday was Earth Day and we put on a showing of ¨FernGully in spanish for the local children. We had a great turn-out and sold our ojaldras and salchicha (cut-up hotdogs with tomato paste) all night. Today we are in the nearby (as in .5hr away bus ride) town, where we will be having classes several times. Tomorrow we will be going to the city where we will be having a bus tour and some time to get to know the city. Then we are back to a full week of classes, plus going on a several day field trip separately (brandon and I will be together) to visit a current volunteer and stay with them at their site.
As for everything else- our host family is very nice, as mentioned before, and we have the ye-ye or "fancy" house in town. We have indoor plumbing including a fully tiled shower and indoor flush toilet with soap and water at the sink, plus our own bedroom including an oscillating fan. Most of our fellow trainees are not so lucky and have an outdoor pit latrine (usually with no tp) and an outdoor shower. As for the weather- it is VERY hot. It is usually about 90 degrees outside, and it usually feels similar to the feeling of stepping out of a hot steamy shower in a closed room.... except everywhere. It is very humid here, and we are slowly getting used to feeling constantly slimy. We eat really well (especially compared to other trainees who usually only get rice and beans) and we get a good assortment of fruits and vegetables, but mostly yucca. Our host mom does our laundry every day and so we just really have to focus on studying to be ready to go to "site".
We love you all and miss you a ton and will send out updated contact information as soon as we get it. As we said, we are working on getting a phone to work, so we will send that out ASAP.
LOVE YOU ALLL!!!!!

-Ashley and Brandon.

PS: sorry for the poor grammar- the keyboards over here are a bit different, plus we are short on time, spanish dictionary... etc.