Megan Unbounded

Whoa! I cannot believe it is February. Already 6 months in my site and about 9 months total in Panama. Almost a year is approaching and I am finally speaking like a Panamanian (according to my community! They tell me everyday what great progress I have made and am learning quickly). My neighbors invited me to their softball game and play every Sunday. They started this league all on their own and the team (which are towns close to my community) will earn cash prizes! Though my community did not win this time, it was fun to watch them play and the community taxi driver test out his coaching skills! It is coffee harvesting season! One of my host families has converted their front patio in to a solar drying system. And I am excited that they have asked me to help them get piladors which will help increase the value of their coffee when they sell them to buyers! Hopefully during an anaylsis of community issues next week, this will be my main project I will be working on with my comm...

During the week before I left to tech week, one of the families in the community and I made a papaya dessert. It was kind of like a mermalade with lots of sugar! It was really sweet but tasty.  And then coffee tech week in Santa Fe, Panama near the mountains. It was so beautiful and it was so chilly out it felt like autumn in the northern part of the United States. I forgot that I was in Panama because it is usually hot and humid! One of the farmers taught us how to start and care for a worm farm! Since he had so many, he gave us some worms to take home so that we can begin them in our sites and teach our community members too. This is one of best ways to give nutrients to coffee trees while using an organic fertilizer.  This is worm tea, which catches all the nutrients from the water that runs through the soil.  This week we learned the safest ways to prune coffee trees without harming them! We used a special saw that is curv...

When the holidays come around, it is nothing but food, family, and well more food! We were making some tamales made of corn with some spices and in the center they had chicken or pork! Mine of course were vegan with only onions! We wrapped them up in big palm leafs to hold the flavors in and used huge pots to cook the 100 tamales for about an hour or two.  These are the huge pots they used to cook all the tamales.  And cannot forget the ensalada de feria, which is like potato salad with radishes to give it a red color! And our entertainment for the day was when all the dogs, boys, and men went to hunt down an iguana in the "back yard" hillside. They said this will be their future meal of iguana soup.... My Panamanian's mother birthday is like the day after New Years so I made her a personal upside down pineapple cake! I should have known to make a bigger one because she is one of the nicest and generous people I have met here and ended up sha...