I have officially been in Panama for 10 weeks, which is kind of mind blowing. I am sorry to be a bad blogger, but training is intensive and integrating into my new life felt as a higher priority than trying to find wifi. But here I am on the last day of training and officially moving to my permanent home for the next two years.
Entrenamiento en español (training):
Every day we had Spanish class in the morning and technical classes in the afternoon. I had the best language class with a very motivated group of volunteers. We began in the Novato class which means we came in very low with our Spanish skills. It was discouraging for me to be put into the lowest class after studying Spanish for almost four years, but it really showed me how important it is to immerse yourself and how important studying and practicing is. One of the hardest barriers when learning a language is not to deja la pena (take off the shame). Learning a language when you are older is hard because you are afraid to make mistakes or try something when you don't know the answer 100%. Luckily my class and my teacher really fostered a positive class environment and we never felt uncomfortable to try something. I was so impressed with how fast we were catching onto the language and how our teacher got us out of our comfort zones so quickly. We were immediately interviewing people and practicing giving speeches in Spanish. I can confidently say that the way we learned Spanish brought my abilities and self-confidence up so much higher than I ever thought.
Entrenamiento technico (technical training):
After lunch with our host families we always had tech training which includes a variety of things. Someday's we discussed about how to lead a class, English grammar, attention getters, public speaking, and classroom management. Technical training was the place where we saw where everyone thrives from their past experiences and it was fun to see people express that. To begin class we always did a dinámica (ice breaker) and it was fun to see how people got the energy flowing for our days. Another great aspect of training is that we have these fun three hats that people are elected for and it was an encouraging process where someone compliments someone on their abilities to integrate or their willingness to take care of others in our group.
We were given two great opportunities to do technical training on the ground during our two tech weeks. The first tech week we traveled to a different community in the province of Verguas and stayed with a new family for a week. During that tech week we taught in a class in the morning in either the elementary school or the high school. We taught in Spanish to practice different ways we can teach leadership and life skills. We used a curriculum called Soy Joven, Soy Lider which was a focused curriculum where each day we assisted students in a conversation about emotional intelligence, stress management, peer pressure, and decision making. Teaching all in Spanish was one the hardest things I have done here in Panama as I was only at a little higher of a level Spanish than I was at the beginning. But I made sure to really prep and have lots of questions to ask the kids and luckily I taught in a group with two other very encouraging girls. After teaching in the morning we learned from other volunteers on how they perform leadership and life skill activities in their communities and what kind of groups or clubs one could do in site. It was a nice week of stepping into the life we would be living for the next two years.
Our other technical week we practiced Co-teaching and Co-planning in a community close to our training community and we taught in English. We only taught three days but it was probably my favorite part of training entirely. I had an amazingly motivated teacher who wanted help in anyway possible in her class. She was great at brainstorming and trying things. It was inspiring to see how the students respected her and came to her for advice as I had done when I was the students ages. The school is a specialty school where students go to study a focused career and all the students I had were in the military program. The students themselves were motivated having a new person in the class and encouraging them to practice their English. On my last day I taught them about Pearl Harbor and showed them pictures of the beautiful boat road and museum that is in Oahu. Before I left all the students grabbed me for pictures and wrote me cards thanking me for teaching them and it was the sweetest and most welcoming experience I have had in Panama.
Host Family:
I began my time in Santa Clara with an older couple and a quiet house to myself basically. My first family was not able to help me integrate as they were not able to leave the house very much from business and illness. But I appreciated my beginning time their to have time to process my big move and get the introverted time that I needed. Half way through training I moved to a different host family so that I could keep improving with Spanish and my integration into Panamanian culture. My new host family immediately welcomed me and filled me with so much joy. I moved to a giant host family that had kids running around everywhere and someone to always eat dinner with. They invited me to every family event and always had me busy learning a new Panamanian thing. The house was so full and there was no such thing as alone time which I needed at that time. It was the perfect distraction from Josh leaving for basic and to keep me busy as we got closer to beginning our real life here in Panama. They became a real piece of my heart and the kids were hard to say goodbye to. I enjoyed our nightly routines playing cards, reading a book, and lots of "goodnight" hugs. A funny take away from my host family is that they liked to lock their doors very well at night and they put chairs in front of the doors. My first night I had to go to the bathroom which is outside of the house and I tried to move this giant chair and ended up waking up the entire house just so I could use the bathroom. From then on I learned to use the bathroom two times before bed and not to drink too much water before bed.
Lessons learned:
Somethings that I want to reflect on here is being able to find yourself and your own self-confidence. Being here you have to be your own hypeman. You cannot depend on everyone to encourage you and tell you that you are doing a great job. And that is something hard for me to adjust to because I am someone who loves words of affirmation. My self-confidence is still low and not always as high and strong as it should be but I've really learned that a lot of things are up to me and my abilities and no one else. But it is important to have a couple people in your life that you can depend on for some words of encouragement. I've made many great friends and relationships but we are coming to the time where we are reliable on ourselves and our community for everything now. We are restarting once again and it is important to do our best to integrate and find the people who won't drain us too much. I know I still have so much more to learn and especially now that we are finally getting started for real.
Be on the lookout for my next post which will be about my new community in the province of Bocas del Toro!
