At Home Empathy Fun: The Shower

For all of those missing us back in the states, we have thought to mention some way for you to be here with us without having to travel. The Shower: our site has quite the irregular water supply that is out as often as it is in order. Therefore, bathing and the like become a more interesting affair than what one is accustomed in the states. Adding to this, the electricity can also be temperamental. The state of the electricity is relevant since the oppressive heat of the sun during the day as well as the consideration of sunset at seven in the evening; it is preferable to shower after dark.
To bathe during the periodic circumstance when both utilities are nonfunctional we follow these steps:
To begin, our host family maintains a reserve capacity of approximately 250 gallons of water, which is acquired via rain-catchment. Principally, there are two 55-gallon plastic tanks and a 130-gallon plastic tub; the rest of the water is stored in five-gallon containers. The 55-gallon tanks are for the sink and toilet, the 130-gallon tub for washing clothes and the five-gallon containers are those used for bathing.
Note, in despite of the fact that the reserves are derived from rainwater, at times the water may contain enough suspended solids to leave it with a translucent consistency; this is, however, consistently vastly clearer than the water derived from the stream-sourced water supply and at many times the water is quite clear.
Now to the supplies: As most of you in the states will not have been maintaining a rainwater reserve the best alternative is likely to be your home’s outdoor faucet; this should give you the approximate water temperature as well as allowing the opportunity to walk it back to the shower. In the shower is a five-gallon bucket; this should be filled completely. Hoping that you have the luxury of being in possession of some form of headlamp or lantern, find a form of battery operated light that could be hung from someplace in the bathing cavity, as we will be showering with the lights out. Next, grab a pack towel if available or head towards the garage to fetch a super shammies if you have one (both are approximately the same); if not your regular towel may be substituted. Finally, and for your enjoyment (AJ we are speaking to you especially!), find the nearest whip cream container and empty it to your hearts content; this will become your shower ladle. Finally, be sure that you have all of you typical bathing products with you. You are now ready to enjoy the shower!
If any should be so adventuresome to try this, you may be surprised at how easy this mode of bathing can be and how well it rinses; the control over the water is rather effective and we are also only in need of using about two-thirds of the bucket for either of our showers in despite of Ashley’s long hair or the fact that I also wash my undergarment (but that’s a another story). Finally, we will note that given the temperature here, the cold water is refreshing many times and this may of course not be the same for everyone in the states. However, Ashley for one really loves the solar shower that has been sent by her mom and this is used whenever there is the opportunity!

Our City Adventure- One Month In

Hello all!
We have officially been in our own site for a month. Four weeks solid of being completely immersed in the culture and lifestyle of our new town- which also means four weeks without e-mail, groceries or modern amenities like hot water. Needless to say, we have been looking forward to ¨getting out¨ for a couple days for the past few weeks now, slowly preparing our list of things to do when we get to the city; the least of which not being to take a nice hot shower! So Brandon and I have ventured into the city for the first time since our öfficial¨ Peace Corps duties began- and it has been great. We showed up on Friday and went straight to the office to use some free Internet and pick up love (aka packages and mail!). We then spent the rest of the evening taking advantage of the hot water and watching Food Network (one of the few English-without-subtitles channels (plus it is just great to see that there are people making great food out there!)
Most of Saturday was filled with grocery shopping, as we don´t have a grocery store within about 3 hours of us (not to mention the boat and bus ride), and we won´t be back out of our site most likely for another month or so. Buying groceries for a month and a half, and knowing you will have to carry them all on your back is a quite difficult task. It really makes you think about what is most important- as for me, I made sure to grab a sugary bag of chocolate cereal with marshmallows and 4 boxes of ultra-pasteurized skim milk. Our community and area and most of the country for that matter are sadly lacking in their variety of vegetables for consumption. What our community members call ¨vegetables¨ include: ñame, yucca, otoy, and platanos or bananas (of the unripe green variety). These are all basically equivalent to our nice starchy potato- from which little nutrients are found. SO, we also get to carry on our back a meager amount of fruits and vegetables to try and even out our nutrient intake (while trying not to destroy them in transit). One of our favorites so far, is Broccoli as it is about the most dense, rich, dark green thing that they sell in the supermarket, which our host mom doesn´t like in the least. We have started several seedlings so far of onions, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, and some spices, hopefully to which we will add a bunch more and make our list of vegetables to buy in the city almost non-existent.
After all of that shopping and walking around yesterday (I´m pretty sure that we walked about 7 miles...) we decided to go out to dinner (thanks to the great folks in the Bennigans headquarters for realizing that some people want American type food everywhere, even in Panama) and then go to ¨The Dark Knight¨--The new Batman movie. We had originally decided to do this at the mall with which we are most familiar (Albrook), but we had heard of a theater where you could order food from- where else, Bennigans- and sit in a fully reclining ( and I mean fully reclining) LazyBoy of a chair (overstuffed and all). So we decided to go there, but hitting up Bennigans before going to the movie, so that we could make the most of our free time. At the restaurant, Brandon had decided to order a Burger to make up for the lacking of beef and American cheese (plus just it being a sesame seeded bun was a great piece of Americana for him), and I decided to order what I thought was a club sandwich. However, when it came out, it looked more like someone had accidentally dropped my sandwich (which was sans any type of vegetable) into a crazy Iowa State Fair deep fat fryer machine, and then they decided to, just for good measure, coat it in powdered sugar and give me some raspberry jam- just in case there wasn´t enough sugar on my ¨club sandwich¨. Needless to say- Brandon ate more of it than I did, and we brought the other part back to the hotel to eat for breakfast. The movie however - did not disappoint. It was fantastic to be able to watch a western drama (as our host sister watches Barney non-stop (literally) all day long, and very loudly might I add). The story line to the movie was fantastic, and in the words of Brandon it spoke to bigger issues than just the characters or the movie itself¨.
So that has been our city trip this time. Today we will be ¨shipping out¨ leaving quite soon to go to the bus station and catch the first of our buses to our site. We have been very happy to hear from those of you that have written e-mails to us, and are thankful that it sounds like you are all healthy and doing well. Once again- I would like to remind you that we would love to hear from everyone (fill us in on what is going on in your lives) and you can also call us!! Just find an international calling card, and give us a call. Our cell phone number is 011.507.6406.0177, we usually have reception all the time- and the call is free for us! (We would LOVE to hear from you!!!)
We love you, and will respond to all emails next month on our next city adventure.
Love,
Ashley and Brandon

Nuestro Sitio (Our Site)

So we have been happily living in our new town for the next two years for the past week or so. It is GORGEOUS. It is approximately 5-6 hours from Panama City, and 3 hours from Colon, and it is right on the water. We have so far been ïntegrating¨as that is our job for these first three months that we have been there. This means basically that we have been adopting their lifestyle, which is suffice it to say- very laid back. The town is made up of less than about 50 buildings, most of which are just small single-family homes. Most of the people in town work their own land or someone else´s land very close to town, or they live and work in the city of Colon during the week, and come back to town on the weekends. There are anywhere between 100 and 50 people (depending on who you ask), and it is generally pretty quiet. The town is situated near another small town that lies on the opposite bank of a fairly wide river- which makes us getting to our site interesting as we have to take a boat past the mouth of the river on the ocean. So far we have been very lucky as we haven´t had to pay for gasoline for the boat ride as of yet- but as it is getting more expensive I expect that that will change. The town is also in a small, flat cove off of the ocean, and on the other side of the peninsula is a long gorgeous yellow sand beach, which according to Brandon is the most beautiful beach that he has ever seen. It is pretty gorgeous. It is lined with fully mature palm trees, and the beach is religiously cleaned and taken care of. There are only three houses on this beach, which are vacation homes for those living out of country or in the city somewhere, and are rarely inhabited, which makes for a great private beach for whoever happens to be there for the day. Nothing in our town including the amazing beach to the side of town are more than a five minute walk. It is pretty small. The people so far have been amazing. Everybody has the nicest smile, and have been welcoming to us, and open to us living in their beautiful town for two years. We are a bit apprehensive as most of them are very content with the way that life is right now (they have semi-interrupted water and electricity which usually doesn´t prove to be a problem) so there isn´t a whole lot of incentive for change- but there does seem to be a strong interest in an English class- which they will be needing. So far we have heard that there is one Pan-American who has purchased a large chunk of land directly behind the town where he plans on building about 100 tourist cabanas as part of a resort in the town, and another American has purchased the tract of land where the cleaned beach is. In the coming years this little town of ours will be teeming with tourism- they will definetly need the english language skills. As for now, we are very happy and content with our family. They always allow us our personal space (they also have a great house), they help us with our spanish (correcting us when necessary), they are always laughing, and they let me cook! Anyway... my time is running out on the computer, so I will say adios. We hope that you are all doing well, and that you have an amazing summer. We hope that we hear from you soon (as very few of you have been filling us in on your lives!!!)
Lots of Love,
Ashley and Brandon