My First Peace Corps Charla!

For the past few weeks, a lot has been going on with the holiday season and trying to prepare for my first charla about La Poda, or pruning, for coffee trees. At the beginning of this month, it was Mother's Day in Panama (December 8) and my Panamanian mother asked me to celebrate it with her and her family. We made chicha, or juice, from freshly squeezed oranges and they had sancocho for dinner. Sancocho has chicken (like all parts of it, feet and all!), name, otoe, and a few other Panamanian veggies in it. When it was time to eat, my Panamanian mother was so sweet and said I am like her daughter now and appreciates that everyone in the community, as well as her family, takes good care of her because she does not like to be alone and cannot care for her house due to her age.

Sancocho!

My Panamanian mother and her family that came to visit from Panama City.

Finally, I had my first charla or seminar about the correct way to prune a coffee tree! The farmers did not know much information and they appreciated not only did we have a discussion about it, but we did a practice as well so they can get hands-on experience. It is more effective to create sustainable practices through experience. Even one of the farmers kids came to learn!

And I made patacones for the first time in my new house! They are double fried plantains (which are not exactly all that healthy..but they are so delicious!) with a little bit of salt. They are one of my favorite Panamanian dishes here.

Also, I got a puppy as a gift from my community! She is so cute and I named her Siri which was my name in Ngobere when I visited an indigenous community in Bocas del Toro this past summer.

She always likes to sleep on top of my guineo! It is her favorite sleeping spot.

And if I have to go some place, I carry her in my chakra I made in Bocas del Toro! My community members think it is the cutest thing ever LOL

And we are just going for a relaxing boat ride down the many rivers that run through my community. The rivers are now high enough to use boats because in this same location, I used to bathe here! Also, my community says it is the best time to visit the Embera indigenous sites. I cannot wait to visit them and supposedly there are three that live really close to me.

One couple in the community is having a wedding and so we are making the decorations (mainly flowers) from recycled materials! Most of the flowers are from plastic bottles that were cut thinly and we had a few others created from used soda cans. They are so pretty and many did not believe they came from bottles and cans.