Wednesday, July 22, 2009

What's new?!

Time is flying by, and it's been a while now since we've taken a moment to step back and blog. This blog doesn't have any particular theme, but I thought we'd update you on the happenings in our lives over the past month +.

We've been busy, for one! We've been finding ourselves traveling more and more out of our community for various seminars, office initiatives, trainings and other commitments. It's great to be busy, but it feels really good to come home to our little shack, rest, relax and hang out with the wonderful friends we've made! I'm looking forward to getting back tomorrow after more almost 2 weeks gone. Unfortunately, most of our time in site recently feels like it's filled with endless washing of clothes that never dry.

On that note, all of our clothes smell like blue cheese. This is not a good development. Mold is good in cheese. Not in clothes.

We're going through a time of transition right now with Peace Corps volunteers. We had the latest training group arrive in April, and swear-in in July, which means we've got new faces, and another new volunteer in our community, working in agriculture. He's settling in, which means that we'll soon be saying goodbye to Stephanie as she finishes her 3rd year in our community and is moving on to bigger and better things. Change is good, but it will be really hard to see her go - we've developed a really strong bond with her, and she's been such a great influence in our lives! On top of that, as one group enters, another one is leaving, so we just said goodbye to a group of volunteers, of which included some great friends as well. And if you can still follow this, the next new group arrives in mid-August, like we did - almost ONE YEAR AGO! Wow!

Ben and I are going to be quite involved in the training of the new group. Ben will be coming in during their first whole week in country to train them about community analysis, and share our experience of community integration. I have been working on developing an analysis tool for our sector. Something that will help us assess the needs of groups and communities and help us target our work a bit more - "community economic development" tends to be a bit vague! On top of that, we've been asked to host the Technical Training week in our community - the 7th week of training, for the new business sector volunteers. This means that we will host 19 trainees in our community, and help them to go through the process of assessing a group's needs, planning a presentation or other activity with their group, and then delivering a community-wide presentation. It's a hard week - and I remember from my experience, after coming from my culture week in the Comarca, and into my tech week, I was drained! Having everyone come to the Comarca during this week will definitely be a strain on some people, but we're excited, and we know our community is a great place to host this special training!

What else is new? Well, in the beginning of July, Ben surprised me with a trip to Cartagena, Colombia to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary! It was a huge surprise, and he had me thinking of a million different possibilities, but definitely not Colombia! The trip was AMAZING! It felt so nice to get on an airplane and be somewhere so quickly and easily! The city was beautiful, and we spent the majority of our time wandering around the streets of the old city, with no particular agenda - popping into museums, soaking in the scenery, drinking fresh limeade and eating lots of delicious street food! We also lived it up a bit and treated ourselves to some really nice dinners and Ben bought me an emerald ring - we were in Cartagena, right?! More than anything, it was nice to get away, and be "normal" again (aside from the blue cheese smell which followed us in our clothes).

After coming home from Colombia, Ben went to the doctor in David to check up on a little diarrhea issue. He'd come down with it a while before, and was supposed to send in samples while he was in Panama City, but didn't, and then it passed, so he figured he was fine. Not so. Upon returning from Colombia, the diarrhea returned, so he went in, and they found that he had not one, but two different types of amoebas living in his system! Hopefully he's cleared out now, after all the medications he was taking to clear out his system, and replace the good organisms. While at the doctor's office, he was weighed with all his clothes, shoes, hat, things in his pockets, etc, and weighed in at 201! This means at least a 50 pound weight loss for him! Incredible! He looks and feels great!

The last thing is that we're coming home for Christmas time! We've scheduled a two-week trip back to the states to see family, and we're really excited to see everyone and hang out!

That should cover everything major! To sum things up, we're pretty healthy, very happy, and really enjoying our time here in Panama!