Birthdays and Accomplishments

Feliz 32! 

El Decano Nicolas with the cake

Doris as she presents

El Decano Nicholas, Doris and Karla after all was said and done

Things are a bit tense here in Panama City because the Construction Workers have gone (I believe) on strike and apparently, sometimes things get violent at times like this.  I had 2 friends send me messages about this though I wasn't able to get much more information.  It is still a concern and Elba said she'd call me if she hears of anything.

I could see the results of this because there were very few cabs on the street today.  I finally saw a cab and flagged it - though it had 2 women also in it.  It turned out that they were going very nearby so it was OK.  But I wouldn't have done that if cabs had been more plentiful.

The day at UTP began with sweets.  I had gotten a late start because I spilled on my last shirt and had to do laundry before I could head in.  The department gathered to have one more birthday party.  The cake was huge - and very tasty.  I joined the coro and it was great fun to sing again.  I really must learn the words to the second verse that they sing here.  

A friend from South Africa pinged me later to tell me that 32 in binary is 100000, so it's much more important than 30.  :-)

Shortly after lunch, at 1 pm, one of our students, Doris, was presenting her Masters work.  I'm very interested in what she did - which is good because I'm going to coach her as she writes an article on it in English.  Man, what a daunting task!

Thing was, I was supposed to be teaching at 1:30.  The class was all interested in Doris' work too though so we rescheduled for tomorrow - same time, same place.  I went back over, but by that time, she was in the midst of her presentation and I really didn't want to throw her by coming in mid-stream, so I waited outside until she was done.  There was a long pause, and then they called her back in to ask a bunch more question.  It took me back (WAY back)!  

But, no surprises here, she did a great job and passed her defense.  YAY DORIS!

I went back to the office and completed my rap.  Yay!  I also found someone who can beat box so we'll work on that tomorrow.  Then I plan to put together a slide with the text and slides with each of the "Lessons learned" too.  Plus (most importantly and significantly) I have to put together my Case Study slides.  I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to do, but I have to do it.  Now.

Spanish, CHI, and a sad anniversary

A day without photos.

The birthday celebration of our department continued this morning with a breakfast for everyone in the hallway.  Panamanian desayuno (breakfast) fare is yummy but not exactly slimming.  And it sticks to the ribs (and elsewhere)  Even though I didn't take much, I felt full all day.  And still do.

I continued my plan to speak (mostly) in Spanish today.  It feels slightly easier to speak with each day and each conversation.  I still feel bad for those who have to listen to me as I try to find words, but I love the corrections and hope that soon I won't need quite so many.

So today, Geralis came by and went over some verbs with me - very helpful.  And I spoke with a number of people.

I came home rather early because Elba had to do some errands with her Mom, but that was great because it meant that I could work on my CHI presentations, rap, etc.  Still a way to go before next Thursday for my Case Study (slides partly done) and "Fireside chat" (rap mostly done, themes ID'd, slides partly decided upon)  And then there are the Workshop (speed dating planned - thanks Matt Kam!),  SIG (no activity on my part yet) and Women's Breakfast (story chosen = done)  But I pulled things together including all of the registration stuff (so glad I can find it!  Let's hear it for organization!) and checked the weather forecast (COLD! not even 60F while we're there) so I put in my long johns.  Yes, I have long johns here.  And sometimes it feels like I need them at school because they keep the offices so cold.

Plus I'm ready for class tomorrow - except that I HOPE I can at least TRY to give part of the class in Spanish.  This will depend a bit on whether Nicolas comes to observe.  Not sure my Spanish could take the pressure.  ;-)

In other news, today (April 22), our second daughter, Sarah Beth, would have been 27 had she lived.  Sadly, she had a genetic defect that was diagnosed 10 weeks before she was born.  Since it was the first time they had ever diagnosed it prenatally before, the doctors couldn't give us much guidance as to what to expect.  It is a recessive disease - Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease - and it is routinely diagnosed prenatally now, but then, we were on uncharted ground.  So we had to prepare ourselves and, more importantly, Anna Rachel who was almost 5 at the time, for the unknown - although a likely bad unknown no matter what.  In the end, she made the decisions about what to do for us because her lungs had not developed (due to the lack of amniotic fluid) and she simply could not survive, even on a respirator.  She had an old-fashioned death, dying in David's arms, surrounded by her family, including her big sister who was the only person she ever really looked at. It was a very hard and sad time.  We remember her always though.  Always.  Even in exotic and far-away places like Panama.  Perhaps especially here.

And it's very late now, so I must sign off.

Lunes

Hoy, decido de hablar solamente en español por que tengo que aprenderlo.
(Today, I decided to speak only in Spanish because I must learn it)

And it worked for most of the day.  Which was great for me, but painful for those listening to me speak v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y and to start in one direction, get stuck and try another route to explanations. Whew!  I'm totally exhausted!

This week is the celebration of the birthday of the department.  As a result, the day began with a mass for the retiring Dean.  This was fascinating to me.  And, as usual, I leapt right in when I saw that Giancarlis, one of our Masters students had her guitar out and a very small group was practicing songs for the service.  I was so excited that I joined in and they welcomed me although they didn't know that I'm Protestant, and that both the Spanish words and the music were completely new to me. But oh, what fun it was!  I'm so glad I arrived when I did and that they let me sing with them.

The day sped by.  Despite the enormous pile of things to do before I leave for CHI on Friday, I wasn't so productive partly because I kept trying to speak and think in Spanish.

Tonight, I am trying to make up for that so this is a short post.  Buenas noches!

Adventuring in Chiriqui: Day 4 (Sunday)

Danny and David asleep

Signs, signs, signs!

Definitely deep moments

Veggies!

Crafts

Waiting

Walking (but not more than 80 KPH)

Walking

Walking

Waiting

Sunday, we returned to Panama City.

We expected huge traffic jams and even heard that the traffic was completely blocked.

But it wasn't.  At least not for us.

Once more, Aris did a splendid job of driving.  At one point, I called her "Queen of the Road" in a cultural reference to the song "King of the Road", but of course, cultural references don't always transfer.  In fact they rarely do.  So much for that!

For much of the trip, I worked on my rap (you'll have to come to CHI for that!) and we talked and played word and math games with Danny and David - who are VERY bright kids!  I even played along with the guessing games of naming words starting with or ending with a particular letter.  The boys were really good at this and I thought back to similar games on similar trips in another country and another time.  

My personal favorite from Anna Rachel's youth and all of our time sailing is "Dancing Daringly in Denmark."  It gets tricky very fast - especially with certain letters like X and Z. There just aren't that many Verb-Adverb-Location combos available so after the first round, it's almost impossible to find them.  We roared with laughter many times!

Aris made fabulous time - it took us just 7 hrs to return - the same amount of time that it took to get to Chiriqui.

And what an amazing trip this has been!  So many thanks to Aris and her family for a memorable weekend with really wonderful folks.  A text that I got after we had departed said, "Now you have a Panamanian family."  Which made me so very happy.

Adventuring in Chiriqui: Day 3 (Saturday)

In Costa Rica (very briefly)

Ngäbe-Buglé women walking to the border

 

Danny (Aris' son)

David (Aris' other son)

Daniel at the playground 

At the playground

At the playground

On the drive back to David

Coffee growers for the label, Cafe Duran

Another coffee grower

Aris at the wheel

The temperature has plummeted to 23 C (73 F)

In Volcan

The Barber of Volcan

Ngäbe-Buglé walking

Ngäbe-Buglé waiting

Ngäbe-Buglé waiting

Ngäbe-Buglé waiting

I awoke before 7 today, and got up to shower before the rush on the bathroom.  I had a “boat shower” using the collected water in the corner and then dressed and packed.  As I heard people moving into the living room, I joined them.  The coffee con leche (which used evaporated milk – brilliant idea!) was amazing!  And then came breakfast:  Yucca. Carne asada.  Fresh queso.  And a sweet made with sugar cane juice and milk, boiled together for quite a while the night before on an open fire.  Once again, delicious!

After we had eaten, two of Aris’ sisters and I were sitting in the living room when the chairs began to dance and rock.  It felt like it went on for several minutes, although I’m certain it was under a minute.  It stopped for a moment, and then continued on again.

Turns out there was a 5.2 magnitude earthquake whose epicenter was in Conception – only 45 miles away!  Aris said that they felt it even more up on the hill at her cousin’s house.  It wasn’t scary – perhaps if it had been stronger it would have been.  (David pointed out that this was the strongest quake I've ever experienced)  More about it here  

A couple of Aris’ sisters wanted to go up to the border with Costa Rica, so we jumped in the car and went.  Turns out it was just a few blocks away!  Of course, a "few" blocks is a long way when it's up a steep street!  We walked across the border –  unmanned as far as I could see – and went into a couple of shops.  Then, we went back down the hill, and sped past the family’s house.  I saw Aris’ car and, not wanting a repeat of yesterday morning when I kept them waiting, I was a bit concerned.  I used “What’s App” to tell her where we were, and then to send her the photos of us at the next border crossing several miles away.  

A digression:  If you are using "What’s App” now, I’d love to know so we can chat – for free!  If you aren’t, please consider getting it (and letting me know so we can chat)  It’s really great – you can chat and send photos easily and for free (did I mention that before?)  All-in-all, a terrific app.

We returned home and a whole new group was assembling – along with most of those from yesterday.  Aris and the boys were there, but they weren’t yet ready to leave (phew!)  Once again, the happy, busy, loving family greeted and kissed each other.  It’s wonderful.  And there was another demo of the beauty products.  And food.  More food.

We were getting ready to leave when Aris’ aunt made soup.  So we stayed for it since, of course, it was amazingly good.  

Finally, it was time to depart.  After many kisses good bye, we piled into the car and sped back to David.  There was rain splatters en route home, and the many twists and turns gave us a completely different view than we had on the way to Rio Sereno.  This time I got more of the shots I wanted while in the back seat, the boys quietly napped.  Aris said they were sort of like puppies, all piled together, and so they were.

We returned to David and I checked into my hotel.  This time, I’m on the first (2nd in US) floor, so it won’t be as hard to get up or down as it was last time when I was on the 2nd (3rd) floor.  And the elevator is working which it wasn’t last time.  But, alas, the internet is not working.  I’ve been able to download email, but not to send it, and I can’t get to the web.

So I wrote these entries, and prepared for tonight’s dance!

At 8 pm, Aris picked me up and off we went to meet her high school friends and maybe dance a bit.  It was fun seeing all of them again, but unfortunately, a headache which had been building all day blossomed into a full-blown monster and I had to cab it back to the hotel.  Darn it!

I fell into bed and straight to sleep the moment I got back.

Aris and her friends danced until 1:30 am.  At which point I had been in dreamland for many hours.