Those are the names of three of my favorite things. Bocadillos are savory snacks, like these delicious faux cheetos called Conchitas. And burundanga is a panamanian word for sweet snacks, like cookies and icecream. Who doesnt love cookies and icecream? And duros of course, which are the best burundangas. And batidos are these super delicious fruit shakes, except a lot of panamanians like cornflakes in their milk shakes, and I cant say Im a fan of that.
Last weekend I made my host family pancakes on saturday morning, and I brought them home made maple syrup from vermont to eat with the pancakes. And you know what they put on top? American cheese. Right on top of the syrup. I may have died a little bit inside. They were surprised that I didnt want any on mine.
Mangos are still going strong, I average about 4 per day. I found the best tree in town and now I am a mango snob. I only eat the mangos off that tree, oh man they are so good i dont even have the words to describe it. Frisbee is still going strong, tons of neighborhood kids come and its a total riot. Also, I learned that their is a much better word for frisbee in spanish: ASTRODISCO. Put apparently you cant call it astrodisco ultimato or they laugh at you.
This week we had really interesting tech classes. We learned about plumbing and making irrigation systems with bamboo and pvc pipes and a super cool pump called a bomba that you make out of readily available materials and it can pump water 100 meters uphill. We are also making a bunch of different kinds of compost, like regular, worm compost, bokashi, and a fermented molasses kind. We also went over to this hill that had been slashed and burned and built dead barriers and terraces, and learned how to make level As. We used those to stake out contour lines to plant along, and we planted the whole hillside with plantains and bananas, yuca, root veggies called ñame and ñampi, beans, and corn. I hope they grow. recently weve been spending a lot of time working in the field. Its hard work and you get completely filthy and muddy and sweat drenched, but I love it. And besides, one is ALWAYS sweat drench here, and usually muddy to boot. We used the ashes from the slashed and burned trees to make fake tattoos and face paint. Carmen gave me a tattoo of an equis (fer de lance) on my bicep. Pictures will be forthcoming.
we also had a fun spanish party yesterday to celebrate our advancement to the next level. We played some music, some astrodisco, volleyball without a net, some party games, Panamonopoly (its a real boardgame) and ate a TON of bocadillos and burundangas.
This coming week we are splitting up to do tech weeks. 7 of us asSASsins are going to Divisa in Veraguass to go to this permaculture school for a week. It sounds really interesting. The other groups are ging to Bocas for caco training and Boquete for coffee training. That means I am not getting a fruit tree site as expected. I think my site is going to be working with rice planting. I guess this community really wants to plant in a traditional way but they want to improve their soil quality. Im not super excited about rice but the potential community sounds really cool. And thats the most important thing. They said it was also really hot. Yikes. I think THIS is really hot. Ill adjust. Hopefully there will be a chorro.
Im also really excited about tech week because we have a free day after tech week and we are going to the BEACH. we are just getting a palm thatch rancho right ON the beach and we can just hang out there all day and sleep on the sand next to the waves. There is also a little restaurant where you can get fresh caught fish and maybe a pina colada with fresh coconut and pineapple. Overlooking the pacific ocean. And the palm trees. I love my life nearly all of the time except when I have food poisoning.
We started this thing called The Great Botfly Bet. we all put a dollar into the kitty, and the first person to get a botfly (confirmed my photographic evidence of course) wins all the money. Ill probably get one sometime, so I might as well make some cash monies off of it.
Anyway, I hope you are all well. WRITE ME SOME LETTERS! I only got one so far, from my mom. Thanks mom, youre the best. I have written a bunch of you letters but you probably havent gotten them yet because its really hard to get to the post office here so they accumulate in my notebook for a while before i get a chance to send them off.
Anyway, love to you all, even though panama is awesome i miss you guys!
Love, Molly
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
¿Que Sopa?
Hey yall! I never did find that apostrophe key as it turns out. Ah well, such is life. My passport also molded, but again. What can you do. Things are still great in this neck of the isthmus. I have a new machete and I named it La Viuda Negra (which means The Black Widow). She and I do great thigns together like take out swatchs of overgrown campo and hack open coconuts. Here are a few highlights from this week:
1) I rode in a diablo rojo with a monkey.
2) There is an AMAZING waterfall, or Chorro here in Santa Clara. We went for a few hours on Saturday and sat in teh water and I was COOL FOR 2 HOURS!! So exciting. Another volunteer brought loudspeakers and a watermelon and we spent teh afternoon jumping off the rocks and swimming around and it was a ton of fun.
3) we had a conference in a conference center that was decked out in Faux Italian decor. Lots of white with gold trim and lavender accents. I felt like I was supposed to be wearing a quinceanera dress.
4) I get a deep fried hot dog for breakfast or lunch at least once per day.
5) A few of us have been getting together to play frisbee in teh campo in our village. We have been teaching a couple of teh village boys to play and its a lot of fun. And the sunsets over the field are AMAZING every single day.
6) Mango season is beginning...
7) You may be relieved to know that I now celebrate Malaria Mondays. that means I take my antimalarials on moday becasue it rhymes. Except I forgot this week and took it on tuesday. Ah well. One cant always rhyme. You can get fired for not taking your antimalarials, so that sucks. Also apparently we are all going to get botflies. Gross, but sort of fascinating. If youre not squeemish, YouTube it. Apparently they are the least of our worries.
8) I am spending teh next week visiting a volunteer in her site. I was supposed to go to an inidiginous site a 2 hour hike from teh nearest road in teh Comarca Ngobe Bugle, but that volunteer has been in the hospital with severe diarreah (or however you spell that in english, my english is all messed up because of the spanish) for 8 days. Poor woman. So instead I am going to Chiriqui to a Latino site. Its still a 1 hour hike in, so I still get to practice my super efficient packing skillz.
anyway, things are great and I hope you are all having super cool adventures and stuff.
Love to you all,
Molly
1) I rode in a diablo rojo with a monkey.
2) There is an AMAZING waterfall, or Chorro here in Santa Clara. We went for a few hours on Saturday and sat in teh water and I was COOL FOR 2 HOURS!! So exciting. Another volunteer brought loudspeakers and a watermelon and we spent teh afternoon jumping off the rocks and swimming around and it was a ton of fun.
3) we had a conference in a conference center that was decked out in Faux Italian decor. Lots of white with gold trim and lavender accents. I felt like I was supposed to be wearing a quinceanera dress.
4) I get a deep fried hot dog for breakfast or lunch at least once per day.
5) A few of us have been getting together to play frisbee in teh campo in our village. We have been teaching a couple of teh village boys to play and its a lot of fun. And the sunsets over the field are AMAZING every single day.
6) Mango season is beginning...
7) You may be relieved to know that I now celebrate Malaria Mondays. that means I take my antimalarials on moday becasue it rhymes. Except I forgot this week and took it on tuesday. Ah well. One cant always rhyme. You can get fired for not taking your antimalarials, so that sucks. Also apparently we are all going to get botflies. Gross, but sort of fascinating. If youre not squeemish, YouTube it. Apparently they are the least of our worries.
8) I am spending teh next week visiting a volunteer in her site. I was supposed to go to an inidiginous site a 2 hour hike from teh nearest road in teh Comarca Ngobe Bugle, but that volunteer has been in the hospital with severe diarreah (or however you spell that in english, my english is all messed up because of the spanish) for 8 days. Poor woman. So instead I am going to Chiriqui to a Latino site. Its still a 1 hour hike in, so I still get to practice my super efficient packing skillz.
anyway, things are great and I hope you are all having super cool adventures and stuff.
Love to you all,
Molly
Friday, April 30, 2010
¡Its Gringo Season!
Hola muchachos y muchachas!
So I am here in Panama and its only been 10 days but it feels like 8 months. So far i LOVE Panama. It is increadibly beautiful, tropical with gorgeous mountains and palm trees and its awesome. And the people are super nice and friendly and have good senses of humor. My favorite Panameño phrase so far is ¿Que sopa mopri? which is like ¿Que paso primo? but they like to mix up their syllables for fun.
Right now we are in the training community of Santa Clara. Just SASers, which is my group (SAS = Sustainable Agriculture Systems). I live with a super awesome host family. The father, Horacio, has a rockin do rag with his name on it. Iliana is my madre, and I have four siblings, Jenifer (13), Emir (9), Tamara (17) and Eileen (15). They are great. The food is all deep fried. Most mornings I have a deep fried hot dog and deep fried plantains. For lunch the other day I had cornflakes, strawberry flavored cookies, and coke. So much for fitting into my carhartts. We watch a lot of telenovellas, and also Hannah Montana and Es Tan Raven and Yo Soy Betty la Fea.
Training is going really well. I really like PCs approach to developement. Instead of giving people what we think they need, the goal is to empower them to get the things they think they need using resources they have access to. Our bosses are Aimee, who is awesome and really really sweet, and Jean, who is only 25 but knows more than pretty much everyone Ive ever met before. They are great and I am really excited to be working with them. we got our machetes, and we learned how to sharpen them at training the other day. Then we learned how to hack open coconuts to drink the coconut milk. It was badass. We are also growing a garden and raising chickens, both for our big fiesta at the end of training.
I never thought I would go into PC and need to buy nicer clothes, but thats how it turns out. Panamanians dress really nicely, and I turned up WAY underdressed. Predictably I suppose, all teh other trainees were fancier than me. Oh well. Ill catch on maybe. You may have noticed that I am not using apostrophes. I cant find them on this keyboard. There is an ñ where the apostraphe is supposed to be.
The other trainees are super cool peeps. I get along really well with pretty much everyone. Mayas friend Sylvie is the best. There is also a guy who was a morticians assitant and a girl who packed her things in a five gallon bucket. So yeah, I think well get along. My spanish is coming along pretty well. My family speaks no english and we have class for 3 hours a day, so Im picking it up quickly. I can communicate enough to get my point across and understand the gist of most everything that goes down.
If you are my parents you should probably skip to the next paragraph. I LOVE teh diablos rojos here. They are AWESOME. They are like chicken buses, but way more pimped out. Peoplke get really serious with them. They are retired school buses that are painted all over with fantasy-tatoo-graphiti type decorations of all colors, mopstly neon. The insides have tassles, boas, purple pleather cushioning, flashing lights. They have names like Papa Romeo, Malcom X, Pretty, All In, and Baby Face. They think nothing of careening around clif corners and driving backwards at top speed up the sides of mountains. They are the most fun thing so far. Also I had a tarantulla in my house last night.
Welcome Back Mom and Dad!
So aside from teh diablos rojos, my two other favorite panamanian things are sancocho and duros. Sancocho is this DELICIOUS (thankfully not deep fried) soup made with rice, chicken, yucca, and some other root veggies that donçt have names in english. I found the apostrophe! We had it at this rural village in a hut with fresh starfruit straight off the tree. My other favorite thing is Duros, which are like popsicles. They are fruit juice that they freeze in a bag and you buy it for 10 cents, bight off teh corner, and itçs like a slushie. They are THE BEST when you have sweated through all your clothes and you are hot and eternally damp and tired and your brain is too full of spanish and you have just awkwardly told your spanish teacher that you are sexually excited instead of normal excited. So Duros are the best. And you should ALL COME VISIT ME! Because Panam is definitely one of teh most beautiful countries i have ever seen and also super pretty pretty (which is cool in panamanian spanish).
Love you all! Write to me!
Molly
So I am here in Panama and its only been 10 days but it feels like 8 months. So far i LOVE Panama. It is increadibly beautiful, tropical with gorgeous mountains and palm trees and its awesome. And the people are super nice and friendly and have good senses of humor. My favorite Panameño phrase so far is ¿Que sopa mopri? which is like ¿Que paso primo? but they like to mix up their syllables for fun.
Right now we are in the training community of Santa Clara. Just SASers, which is my group (SAS = Sustainable Agriculture Systems). I live with a super awesome host family. The father, Horacio, has a rockin do rag with his name on it. Iliana is my madre, and I have four siblings, Jenifer (13), Emir (9), Tamara (17) and Eileen (15). They are great. The food is all deep fried. Most mornings I have a deep fried hot dog and deep fried plantains. For lunch the other day I had cornflakes, strawberry flavored cookies, and coke. So much for fitting into my carhartts. We watch a lot of telenovellas, and also Hannah Montana and Es Tan Raven and Yo Soy Betty la Fea.
Training is going really well. I really like PCs approach to developement. Instead of giving people what we think they need, the goal is to empower them to get the things they think they need using resources they have access to. Our bosses are Aimee, who is awesome and really really sweet, and Jean, who is only 25 but knows more than pretty much everyone Ive ever met before. They are great and I am really excited to be working with them. we got our machetes, and we learned how to sharpen them at training the other day. Then we learned how to hack open coconuts to drink the coconut milk. It was badass. We are also growing a garden and raising chickens, both for our big fiesta at the end of training.
I never thought I would go into PC and need to buy nicer clothes, but thats how it turns out. Panamanians dress really nicely, and I turned up WAY underdressed. Predictably I suppose, all teh other trainees were fancier than me. Oh well. Ill catch on maybe. You may have noticed that I am not using apostrophes. I cant find them on this keyboard. There is an ñ where the apostraphe is supposed to be.
The other trainees are super cool peeps. I get along really well with pretty much everyone. Mayas friend Sylvie is the best. There is also a guy who was a morticians assitant and a girl who packed her things in a five gallon bucket. So yeah, I think well get along. My spanish is coming along pretty well. My family speaks no english and we have class for 3 hours a day, so Im picking it up quickly. I can communicate enough to get my point across and understand the gist of most everything that goes down.
If you are my parents you should probably skip to the next paragraph. I LOVE teh diablos rojos here. They are AWESOME. They are like chicken buses, but way more pimped out. Peoplke get really serious with them. They are retired school buses that are painted all over with fantasy-tatoo-graphiti type decorations of all colors, mopstly neon. The insides have tassles, boas, purple pleather cushioning, flashing lights. They have names like Papa Romeo, Malcom X, Pretty, All In, and Baby Face. They think nothing of careening around clif corners and driving backwards at top speed up the sides of mountains. They are the most fun thing so far. Also I had a tarantulla in my house last night.
Welcome Back Mom and Dad!
So aside from teh diablos rojos, my two other favorite panamanian things are sancocho and duros. Sancocho is this DELICIOUS (thankfully not deep fried) soup made with rice, chicken, yucca, and some other root veggies that donçt have names in english. I found the apostrophe! We had it at this rural village in a hut with fresh starfruit straight off the tree. My other favorite thing is Duros, which are like popsicles. They are fruit juice that they freeze in a bag and you buy it for 10 cents, bight off teh corner, and itçs like a slushie. They are THE BEST when you have sweated through all your clothes and you are hot and eternally damp and tired and your brain is too full of spanish and you have just awkwardly told your spanish teacher that you are sexually excited instead of normal excited. So Duros are the best. And you should ALL COME VISIT ME! Because Panam is definitely one of teh most beautiful countries i have ever seen and also super pretty pretty (which is cool in panamanian spanish).
Love you all! Write to me!
Molly
Monday, March 22, 2010
Hi there everyone!
So, as it happens I am headed to Panama for 2 years of Peace Corps service. I decided that instead of spamming you all with sarcastic anecdotes and long winded monologues of adventures I think are hilarious but most people probably don't, I'll do a blog. That way you can all ignore me as much as you want and I can still feel like I have friends! Win win.
My e-mail access for the next few years will be sporadic at best, so I don't know how often I'll update this baby, but I'll do my best so just give the old girl a visit every now and again.
Here's what I know:
I am leaving April 20 for Washington, DC for one day of staging, and then on to Panama City on April 21. You might be interested to know that Henry Morgan and his band of ruthless corsairs sacked Panama City in 1671. Captain Morgan, as it turns out, had a pretty nice mustache. We will be in training a few hours outside of Panama City for three months, and then into the jungles to become a volunteer in Sustainable Agriculture Systems.
Until the swearing-in on July 1, you can write to me at:
Molly McCumber
Cuerpo de Paz/Panamá
Edificio 104, 1er Piso
Avenida Vicente Bonilla
Ciudad del Saber, Clayton
Corregimiento de Ancon
Panamá, República de Panamá
Panamá is the name of the Province as well as the country, so that's why it's listed twice. Make sure you write República de Panamá and not just Panamá or they might not deliver it. And if you send a post card, put it in an envelope or it might end up on the walls of the post-office. Although I'm sure the postal workers of Panama would find them delightful. But please write, I would love to hear from you, and I will try my best to write back the good old fashioned way as often as I can which will probably be considerably more often than I can e-mail. And hands down more exciting.
Peace out, cub scouts. I'll catch you in a few years.
Love, Molly
P.S. Do you find it amusing that they told me to pack a wide-brimmed hat?
My e-mail access for the next few years will be sporadic at best, so I don't know how often I'll update this baby, but I'll do my best so just give the old girl a visit every now and again.
Here's what I know:
I am leaving April 20 for Washington, DC for one day of staging, and then on to Panama City on April 21. You might be interested to know that Henry Morgan and his band of ruthless corsairs sacked Panama City in 1671. Captain Morgan, as it turns out, had a pretty nice mustache. We will be in training a few hours outside of Panama City for three months, and then into the jungles to become a volunteer in Sustainable Agriculture Systems.
Until the swearing-in on July 1, you can write to me at:
Molly McCumber
Cuerpo de Paz/Panamá
Edificio 104, 1er Piso
Avenida Vicente Bonilla
Ciudad del Saber, Clayton
Corregimiento de Ancon
Panamá, República de Panamá
Panamá is the name of the Province as well as the country, so that's why it's listed twice. Make sure you write República de Panamá and not just Panamá or they might not deliver it. And if you send a post card, put it in an envelope or it might end up on the walls of the post-office. Although I'm sure the postal workers of Panama would find them delightful. But please write, I would love to hear from you, and I will try my best to write back the good old fashioned way as often as I can which will probably be considerably more often than I can e-mail. And hands down more exciting.
Peace out, cub scouts. I'll catch you in a few years.
Love, Molly
P.S. Do you find it amusing that they told me to pack a wide-brimmed hat?
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