“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe” - Anatole France

Tonight I got in trouble for the first time in my college career for talking during class.  So the girl I was talking to and I spent the rest of the time passing notes back and forth and scribbling short messages about how much we don’t like the class…only to find out after that we have an extra makeup class this Thursday.  I think the word “karma” is the same in English and Spanish.

Today is June 14. Which means that as of today, and probably about this time, I have officially been in Panama for a month. How did that happen?

I think this past week has been my busiest so far, with two full clinical days, an upcoming test on Friday, a paper also due Friday over a movie in Ethics, slight panicking after not being able to understand the movie in the loud classroom, (resolved later with the help of youtube) and meeting more people in the meantime.  After walking to USMA last Wednesday only to find out that class was canceled that night, I spent two hours introducing a few fellow students to the wonders of Google Earth.  They were dumbfounded.  We got kicked out of the school at nine (when it closes) so one of the girls, Aranys, suggested that I go with her and Juan Carlos (he works at USMA but is close in age to us) to get pizza.  They were going to take me to one of the best pizza places in Chitré.  Excited and starving, I eagerly got in the car for the ten minute drive and watched as we pulled up to an exotic, fancy, one of a kind…Domino’s. 

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that Domino’s is (in my mind) far inferior to Pizza Hut back in the States, so I pretended like it was a first real treat for me.  

Saturday I spent the day on a shopping excursion in Chitré.  I’ve been there several times but never in the middle of the city center alone so it was kind of an adventure for me.  I walked into a movie rental store and was approached by one of the workers who asked me if I spoke Spanish.  I launched into my now memorized speech about how I’m from Kansas, am here during my vacation studying, live in La Villa, go to USMA, blah blah blah.  The worker lights up when I mention Kansas and tells me he studied there for a year…which makes him about the fourth or fifth person I’ve met in Panama that somehow has ties to Kansas.  What can I say? I can’t escape home even if I try.

Definitely a lot colder than it looks

I finished the weekend off in the region of El Valle about a two hour drive from La Villa.  I was told by Ana María (my official tour guide as always) that it was a mountainous region and the weather would feel “more like the US!” (aka – cooler) Well, I don’t really consider 80 degrees “cooler” but I’ll take what I can get.  The scenery was incredible and we visited a famous landmark in Panama called La Roca Pintada, which is basically a rock speculated to be over 35,000 years old and painted by ancient Indigenous people over 1,000 years ago.  Our tour guide left us there (and by the way, all of the tour guides were little kids) after we coughed up the dollar for the two minute explanation and we were on our own to finish exploring.  We hiked up a few more rocks (oh yeah, I had originally thought we were headed to the beach that morning so I was wearing flip flops. I don’t recommend it) until we finally reached a waterfall with a small pool underneath.  Ana María’s boyfriend yanked off his jeans revealing swimming trunks underneath and I decided I would be crazy not to get in too, even if the water was freezing (so my dressing for the beach paid off after all).  Just as I waded in to join him, it started to rain making the spot look even more exotic and scaring off the other tourists so it was just us three.  By far my favorite part of the day.

Funny sidenote – I know a lot of Hispanic people are notorious for being short, and while Panamanians aren’t exactly midgets, I have yet to meet a woman taller than me.  The whole time we were climbing up the rocks Ana María and her boyfriend were constantly making comments about how wide my steps were. You would think this would be kind of a self-confidence booster but I feel more like a giant between the two of them. (see below)

I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I am somehow enrolled in a geology class.  I don’t know how it happened exactly.  My teacher isn’t even Panamanian – she’s from Bulgaria and has as weird of an accent as I do.  Regardless of how I ended up in the class of five, it has come to be one of my favorites.  And, to my surprise, I even learned something useful the other day. (Useful to me as a nursing student anyway. Not hating on any of you rock or earth lovers out there) While listening to a part of the presentation about what to do during an earthquake and giggling at the strangely worded phrases (they kept repeating  the word “aplastado” which translates more or less into “plastered” or “crushed”… “they found a school of Chinese children plastered under their desks,”… “if you decide to hide under the bed during an earthquake you will be plastered too,”…I looked over once at a boy sitting next to me and realized I wasn’t the only one smiling at the nonchalant usage of the word) I learned that contrary to what I’ve always been taught, you should NOT take refuge under a doorway. You should instead find a large object (such as a bed), get on the floor next to it, and assume the fetal position. That way, if the roof collapses or something heavy falls from the ceiling, it will make sort of a triangle with the large object next to you and you will be saved from being aplastado. 

Alright. Bed time.  Countdown until mom and Coleen get here: one week.

A man at a random coconut stand on the side of the road.  For just a few cents, he'll drill a hole into those huge things, give you a straw and let you drink the water inside.