Pre-Service in Rio Congo

Alright! I feel so over endulged right now being on the internet! haha, i love it though.

I am doing well and am learning alot from pre-service training. They split all of us trainees up into our own host families in a village outside of Panama City called Rio Congo. I live with a 50-year old panamanian couple, who are frequently visited by their 5 year old grand daughter. No one speaks English period so I´ve been enjoying every moment of it!

Some quick fire and answer questions:

Is it hot? Extremely, i´ve never drank so much water in my life, its kind of scary how dehydrated you get. The humidity is unforgiving and the sun is unbearable! haha

How are the people? There are a few things that are different, culturally speaking, however because this town is basically the equivalent of a small town ho-dunk farm area in illinois, everyone knows each other and everyone is very nice!

Hows the food? I live with a chicken farmer (he was a cop, but is not retired) so we definately have a lot of chicken! But main things that i´ve noted that panamanians in the country side eat a lot of rice, lentils-beans, and lots and lots of fruit. Its funny when my host family members will bring me fruit and i´ll have the most astounded face because i´ll never have seen it before, however i´m more convinced that they bring me fruit now because its more entertaining for them to watch me eat it. haha i´m sure i am like a cave man to them haha.

What are you doing? In the mornings i recieve professional training, basically how to do the job i´m going to be doing for the next two years, and also I have 4 hours of spanish class in the evenings, in the meantime i hang out with my new family or go visit other families. everything is in walking distance. sometimes we will go out to cities for visits and stuff, like today we are at the mall in panama city.

When does your service start? In July, i think...

Do you have electricity, water, internet? Yes electricity most of the time, water too but we can´t waste it because of dry season, sometimes the water just doesnt come, and lastly no absolutely no internet! Probably a good thing. i just purchased a cell phone though!

I´m going to try and put pictures up, either here, face book or on my shutterfly account WWW.LIZWILKIE.SHUTTERFLY.COM

Adios!