So, I've been in Quebrada Cali for exactly one week today, and it's going a lot quicker than I had expected. We've already set up English classes, which are going to be interesting as I have to teach them three times a week to groups of varying ages, th Panamanian educational system has ill-prepared them for such frivolous things as verb conjugations, and oh yeah, I am not a trained ESL teacher. Also, we've already got a directiva, which I guess is the equivalent of a board of directors, to start the Latrine project. My life has gone from twelve hours worth of sleep a night to being divided into little squares of time throughout the week: Tuesdays and Fridays, teach English from 9-1 in the school; Saturdays is adult English from 4-6; Run before nine every morning; Gather around the TV at the tienda with the rest of the community to watch Madre Luna and Dame Chocolate every night from 7-9. Time's going pretty fast and before I know it, I'll be departing on a twelve hour bus trip to Thanksgiving.

Despite the haste at which time is moving, I do get homesick every now and then. For example, take the other day. I was staring (literally, wide eyes, mouth agap) at the stars in the sky that I haven't seen in the last four years, when I caught sight of a northbound plane. I don't know if that plane was going to Mexico or Cuba or Nicaragua or London, but I do know that I got a little teary-eyed about the fact that the only thing keeping me apart from my family and friends back home was the fact that I was not on that plane, or any plane, headed toward the United States. It took a second, but then I realized that more than just that airplane would head back to the US in my lifetime, and that I had approximately 200 English classes to teach over the next two years.

Also, I would never leave my community due to their sheer niceness. My host mother, Jovanys, whom I have only lived with for a week, told me the other day that she would miss me when I change houses at the end of November. I am going to miss her family too, as the other two families are considerably more reserved, but then I remembered, again, that she owns the Tienda where Dame Chocolate is shown every night, and I cannot miss what will unravel with our heroes Rosita/Violeta and Bruce, and whether Angél will keep the secret that he knows. (For those of you who receive Telemundo or TV Azteca, I suggest you search for this show, as it is ridiculously addictive.)

Other than TV, English and Latrine meetings, my time has been spent attending and subsequently dancing at the Independence Day festival, which was both fun and awkward as I avoided the borrachos who made it known that they wanted to dance with La Gringa, despite her inability to move her hips in a proper Panamanian fashion, and also going to the hospital in Cañita, where the head cashier guy made notice of my calves and suggested that someone pop them because they look a little inflated, until my counterpart and I informed him that no, those were normal calves. So yeah, that's what's been going on. If you've read this far, congratulations. Now for what everyone has been demanding, in ways somewhat insensitive to the fact that I do not have the internet at my every day disposal: pictures. Okay, I lied, pictures are being a little bitch, but give me a while and they'll be up. I PROMISE.