Wordless Wednesday!

Sneak peak of life in Panama.. full photo set on Friday!

Boil 'em, Mash 'em, Stick 'em in a Stew!

Potatoes!

After a month of eating almost entirely rice and beans, with the occasional bowl of chicken soup or piece of fried chicken, I finally got the chance to cook a real meal with one of my coworkers.. yum!!

And what did I make? Curry potatoes, white rice, and some fried plantains.  It was heaven!

Everything we cook has to be done on this crappy 2 burner hot plate.. 

My coworker, Aaron, who is frequently shirtless.

And all of this cost less than $3!!

Happy Monday!

I'm on phone/hospital duty today (basically like being the on-call staff person for all 60 volunteers in case anything should happen), which means it's the first real free time I've had in about a month (until the phone rings..)  In my house. All by myself. With my computer and everything.

It's nice.

I also figured it might be a great opportunity to update the ol' bloggeroo and let you all in on what I've been up to the rest of the time.  So, coming this week are a ton of new posts!! Be excited!

First up, an update on community visits.  A huge part of my job this summer is preparing everything for the volunteers' arrival: from host families, to evacuation plans, to rotating meal plans, to community contacts and project ideas.  Before the supervisors got here, the other Senior Staff members and I visited a few of the communities, just making primary contact and warning them of our supervisors' and volunteers' imminent arrival.

Then, last week, as part of my duties as Senior Project Supervisor I went on a week-long survey, where I arranged more of the logistical details within communities, filled out a "profile" of each community, and stayed a night each one (since I am a member of Senior Staff, I only have 2 communities, but all of the supervisors do the same thing for 4 nights).  I also ended up having to go out to one of the other supervisor's communities, due to some trouble we were having, so really I got to go hang out in 3 different, beautiful, and welcoming communities.

If you didn't quite understand all of that, no worries, just know that it was a lot of work but also a lot of fun, and I got a few good pictures!

Because why wouldn't you play cards at a bus stop?

Color version of the photo above.

It was a wild adventure, and I loved every minute :)

Life has been CRAY-ZAY!

Sincerest apologies for not posting recently!

Wanna see what I've been up to here in Panama?

Here's a quick peek (detailed posts coming soon!):

 The rest of our team made it to Panama and moved in..

I went on survey and met 3 of the most awesome, beautiful, communities I've ever been in..

Monopoly in Peña Rodá

Baby horses (there are so many of them!) in La Mesa

Hilarious Kiddos in La Arenita

I goofed off in Chitré being dorks with my coworkers (here're two of them)..

I promise we don't actually dress like this..

I found gummy octopuses (one of my all time favorite candies) in Panama!!

Staff went to Panama city to pick up our volunteers, and got a little crazy on the 4 hour bus ride..

This is my favorite picture of Jarrod ever, haha :)

We made close to 100 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner that night..

Then, we got to spend the night in the beautiful city..

And met our 60 volunteers at the airport!!

Excitement!!

I was so happy to see my kids arrive safe and sound from San Diego (aren't they adorable?)..

They're a BIT tired at this point...

And then the whole group had training for 3 days..

All 70ish of us!!

With their new host siblings!

And I got my route of beautiful volunteers!

<3 these kids so much!

All in all, it was a pretty crazy last couple of weeks, but I'm glad to finally be home in Chitré, cockroaches and all :)

Tonight we're going out for Jarrod's birthday (the girls are all wearing dresses! Expect pictures!) and then maybe we'll finally get to relax for a couple of hours. I'm not counting on it though :P