Sunday, June 7, 2009

AZUERO VISIT!!!


Jonah demonstrating some machismo for the camera!


This is Katie and I cooking some Chicha from corn. Yum yum. She´s clearly ready for lunch.



An iguana from the iguana farm! They raise them for food and release 10% into the wild to support the species. One of them bit me. It hurt and bled a lot but they are still cute.

So I´m getting tired of being at the internet cafe but I felt compelled to update this blog so I´m just gonna copy and paste a letter home. Enjoy! Culture week was a blast!!!

This week I had "culture week" which means that we went to our region to learn more about the culture in that specific place. It was a load of fun. The azuero is all about cowboys so it was a really wild trip! We went on a really long hike through beautiful cow pastures (and cow poop) and got to swim in a nice little swimming hole. Who knew that deforestation could be so beautiful. We worked on a little farm and also helped kids plant crops at their school. Little kids are really good with machetes here. Could you imagine a school in the states letting 11 year olds hack up the yard at their school? I got bit on the finger by an iguana when we went to work on an iguana farm. Those little jerks can bite hard! It´s pretty much healed up now though. They raise them to eat but they release a percentage into the wi ld to preserve the species. On our last day there we had contests and a baile (BIG OLD DANCE PARTY) with our host families. For the contests we had a sling shot competition, a rodeo competition (our host Jonathan and his buddy wrestled down a cow!), a dance off, and a salomar competition. Salomaring is the Panamanian equivelent of yodeling but it sounds like a cross between a dog and a rooster. It´s nuts. It´s very much the wild wild west out there. The only downside is the machismo. Men are men and women are... in the kitchen. Que va. I really hope my town is similar to the one we visited. My site is on the beach in so maybe there will be fewer cows but we´ll see. I can´t wait to check it out next week!

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