Loss of a fellow gringo:( and the entrance of Pulgita:)

So the other volunteer that had extended in my site has completed his service and left this weekend … we threw a big despedida (going away party) for him and good times were had by all. There was a tipico band that played, and they were really bad but almost endearingly bad. I learned how to dance “tipico suelto” which is just where there is an inner circle of dancers which have partners in an outer circle of dancers, and both circles go around to the music, partners switching from inside to outside circles. Sounds complicated but it is actually really easy and very boring considering each song is like 20 minutes long. After a couple songs another volunteer informed me that if you dance with the same guy more than once sometimes it means you want to go to bed with him, so to avoid any confusion (because I wasn’t sure exactly who I had danced with how many times) I just took a break from dancing for the rest of the night. Things like that a woman (and sometimes men too) really need to be aware of because a ton of gossip can be started without you even coming close to realizing what you did wrong. The gossip in this culture is out of control, and if too much gets spread about you and another community member, sometimes the mother’s will lose respect for you and choose not to let their kid hang out with you or be a member of your youth group (or w/e group you have)… we’ve had a lot of cultural training in the beginning of service so this doesn’t come as a surprise to me, but I still have to be on my best behavior. This is why I choose not to drink in my community, only on special occasions like Jonathon’s despedida, where I only had 1 beer.

I’ve moved into a temporary house by myself which is the “summer house” of the daughter of my first host mom. It’s a really cute little house, but they occasionally come on the weekends and spend about 3 months here in the summer when the kids are out of school (which is winter for us and is coming up soon), so unfortunately I will not be able to continue living here, even tho this would be considered a SUPER nice house for Peace Corps standards (it has an indoor shower!!!!! Doesn’t have an indoor toilet but most Panamanians don’t anyways). But I’m taking advantage of it while I start to repair the actual house I will be living in, definitely not as nice and very old … but I will make it look nice. And its got a really beautiful view of the mountains, already picked out a prime spot for my hammock.

So having more time to myself leaves more time to think about stuff, which is not always a good thing. So since Jonathon’s left I’ve thought a lot about what the next 2 years are going to be like, and it’s pretty scary. I feel that I got lucky with being able to have another volunteer in site to ease me into the role of a volunteer, but I also feel is has set me back because now I have to go through what all of my group members have already gotten over, the “oh shit, I am truly alone here and no one understands me” type realization. Don’t get me wrong, we all love our communities, but what we’ve signed up to do is not easy and it takes a lot of emotional control and mental reasoning. You are in a completely different culture that will right off the bat think you’re weird and not understand most of the things you do at first. When you try and explain yourself, you realize that you can barely speak the language and sometimes say something wrong and make yourself look even weirder. You don’t fully realize how nice it is to just be able to say what you want to say until you are in a place that doesn’t speak your language at all. That is why having a volunteer in site for my first 3 months has set me back in a way, because every couple of days when we hung out I could just say whatever I wanted as fast as I wanted and I knew he would understand every word, and when you are the only gringo in site that isn’t possible, and you end up building up all these thoughts that normally you would be able to tell someone, and its very healthy to tell someone … but you cant. One of the volunteers in my site years ago just couldn’t handle it and left a year early – and at first I didn’t really understand why because my community is so nice and hospitable, but now I have a house to myself I realize how easy it could be just to sit and listen to music or read all day long and not go visit the community. Specially that I’ve just started and don’t have a lot to do. But that is just the type of behavior that breeds unhappiness in the long run, and no matter how down you are feeling, or how lazy, the best thing to do is get off your ass and go visit people. It will always make you feel better.
But enough about the serious stuff … I finally got my puppy named Pulgita (little flea). And yes, she is covered in fleas which I feel really bad about but I have to wait another couple weeks to apply the flea/tick control medicine. So I’ve been bathing her every day in this special soap to kill them, but the water here is always freezing and its been pretty chilly and rainy the last couple weeks so every time I give her a bath she acts and sounds like I’m killing her so I feel really bad. For 20 minutes after the bath she just shivers and whines which makes me feel like a total douchebag but at the same time is has helped the fleas a little – so in a couple weeks I’ll be making a trip to the vet to pick up the new spray they have that supposedly works really well? We’ll see. Until then she’ll live up to her name well :)