So we’re just beginning our fourth week of training here, so I thought maybe it would be a decent time to start publishing something. Any earlier than this and I would have only been capable of vague, shell-shocked impressions, but now with my greater experience I’m able to offer a clear and concise observation about where I’ve been this past month, and that is that Panama is not Mexico. It’s wet and jungly and people grow plantains and yucca and taro in their backyards. Oranges too, but they’re prone to molding before they’re ripe. And people dress different and the food is not at all spicy and the local version of Spanish is remarkably less strict about pronouncing all the syllables of words. And there are machetes all over the place.
So that’s Panama.

My project is Community Environmental Conservation. I haven’t received my actual assignment yet, but I’ll probably be working in a small town, cooperating with local groups on an environmental project, probably reforestation and low-impact grazing management. I’ll teach environmental education with the schools, either formally in a class room or through after-school activities. I’m also supposed to advocate and teach organic gardening to improve nutrition and knowledge of the nutrient cycle. And I should teach about AIDS. And about more efficient wood stoves and homemade composting latrines. Most of my technical training is connected to these topics and is very interesting. But, after years of being mocked, my education major friends should be happy to hear that I’ve also been subjected to several hours of educational theory and that more is on the way. My APCD has said I’ll most likely go to cowboy country in Los Santos or to the Ngobe comarca (Indian reservation). I’m pulling for the Ngobe site, but if I’m in Los Santos I’ll buy a pony and name her Yegua and feed her with my front lawn.

Everything is fine with Peace Corps. The trainers are all good and us trainees seem to be getting along all right, which is to be expected because the people who join up tend to be awesome. And I know that the organization has a reputation for being godless hippies, but actually our group of 55 has 3 Republicans and 6 Christians. Diversity.