i´m giving in and starting a blog. today i say goodbye to mass emails and hello to the publication of my life on the internet. hopefully i can keep ya´ll entertained.


so today i got back from visiting a current volunteer in the province of colón. it was the perfect break from training. life as an aspirante has been pretty challenging (class all day, not so great food, having a 7pm cerfew, walking up a hill to use the latrine at 4am, etc) and i needed to get away.

i stayed at the volunteer´s house and explored her community. her town is beautiful. it´s small (300 people) and it´s in the middle of the jungle. there are all sorts of animals around (toucans, monkeys, snakes, and more), and it´s only 20 minutes from the atlantic coast. talk about lucky.

saturday we got to see what she does. she works with an ecotourism group and we got to see the trails it has set up and eat at its restaurant. here´s a picture from a the mirador of one sendero:
then we walked around town. we saw the school where she teaches english and met her neighbors. in a town that small, you know everyone. it was great. one kid even showed us his pet iguana. in the afternoon, we had a baseball game with the local kids. they play with a ball that is kinda like a tennis ball and bat with their arm. it was a lot of fun, even if i didn´t make it to first base most of the time.

sunday morning we went to the beach and had so much fun. the weather was perfect, the water was warm, and we got to talk with some locals. in the afternoon, 2 young folks and an old man from the volunteer´s community met up with us. the old man was short and couldn´t wade in very far. we all thought he was going to drown but then he beat us all in ¨how long can you hold your breath¨contests. who would have thought!

now i´m in panama city and about to head back to my training town for hours upon hours of learning what is a swat analysis and sitting in spanish class. i´m just waiting for the next get away.


hasta luego,
coco





*this is an added story that doesn´t have much to do with my life here. it´s just funny.

i was sitting on the internet last week and an older gentlemen looked over to me. ¨linda, can you help me? i don´t know much about internet,¨ he said. so i began to help him with google. i had to show him how a search works and how to click on links. that part was easy. the hard part has trying not to make a face because he was searching erectile disfunction. AWKWARRRRRRD!
okay, that´s it with the rediculous stories for now.