I ended my last blog post saying I couldn’t wait for Carnival, an event that remains a fuzzy memory still fresh in my mind. Needless to say it was a great time, definitely the MOST fun I’ve had in my ENTIRE life. I won’t go into the details here but by Fat Tuesday I had slept about 12 hours over 5 days, and didn’t want any of it to end. Everything went as planned and there were no major incidents. My New York crew and Peace Corps crew hit it off wonderfully; love was in the air. Check out my “Agua y Guaro” album on Facebook for a taste of what you missed…. Oh and CARNIVAL 2010: Feb 13-16. See ya there!!!!
After a week of recuperation I was back to work on my map of the world, which I had almost finished before Carnival. With my neighbor, her cousins, and some other ambitious students helping me to paint the map I was able to complete my 20 ft long, 10 ft high masterpiece pretty quickly. It came out beautiful and soon afterward I completed the map of Panama that went next to the World Map. To check out more photos click the World Map link to the right.
My mornings were spent preparing the cooperatives books and other materials for our yearly General Assembly. The Assembly was supposed to happen before the end of March, but looks like it’ll now be happening the first week of June. This year we actually have an excuse for our tardiness, which is that we were knee deep in “la politica”. Presidential, Mayoral and Senate elections took place in the beginning of May, so the months leading up to that were quite hectic. The President of my COOP, after organizing everything for his daughter to be Queen of Carnival (no small task with expenses upwards of $50,000) was now running for Vice-Mayor, so he was pretty busy. On Sunday, May 3rd, Ricardo Martinell a self made businessman and owner of one of the largest supermarket chains in Panama was elected President. He beat Balbina Herrera of the incumbent PRD party by a margin of about 2:1. He is a Center-Right Conservative politician who is very business friendly and campaigned on a platform of change. With daily stories of failed or rigged elections everywhere from Iraq to Venezuela it was very encouraging to see the Democratic process in action producing the results the people of Panama asked for.
This guys got my vote In April we had our annual “All Volunteer Conference” at a nice hotel just 20 minutes from my town. The theme of the three day conference was “La Cultura Cuenta y se Cuenta” (Culture Tells Stories and is Important). We had guest speakers, roundtables about volunteer life and post-Peace Corps life and a whole bunch of other meetings that took place in air-conditioned rooms. One evening we had a talent show which I helped kick off by performing with a group of dancers from my town. It was my first time dancing with them and was good practice as I will be performing the same dance at the Corpus Christi festival in my town in early June.
Most recently I was back in the states for a week for my cousin Alison’s wedding. Ali looked beautiful and didn’t stop dancing the whole time. The wedding hall was gorgeous, the food was exquisite and plentiful and the booze was flowing; a great success in my opinion. BIG thanks to Aunt Sue and Uncle Dennis, and best of luck to Ali and Matty!
Panamanian Pimp My Ride: Note the mini screen in front, there´s a full size monitor for the drivers viewing and those speakers seriously bump.GRACIAS Y CUIDENSE!
