I got a cell phone

Big news!! Peace Corps gives us cell phones!!

6576 1214 To dial from the states use 011 + 507+ 65761214

I can reveive calls for free and I´m pretty sure I get decent service in my site.

My address also changed slightly.
For conventional mail:

Joseph Goessling
Cuerpo de Paz / Panama
0834-02788 Entrega General
Republica de Panama

Well I´m finally off to my site for real. Its kinda scary know that my service is offically begining and that I won´t be around gringos for long periods of time. I´m also nervous because unlike my site visit there is no schedule now. I hope to stay busy to keep my mind off off of how different it is. Luckily I have alot of things I could be doing. They have a daily soccer game at 5 every day that is pretty competitive. I also have alot of work to do, the PC requires a lengthy community assesment to be completed as well as a health survey. This helps establish what work needs to be done in the community and is a measure of progress.
Lastly the community next to mine has all the money the design for a new aquaduct. They have alot more work to do before construction actually starts. Most of the aquaducts here are not really engineered, they just make sure the water source is higher than the town. I´m bringing an altimeter to roughly measure the elevations. This way you can do pressure calcuations to possibly change PVC pipe sizes and save money. I need to do this for the new aquaduct as well as the current one in my town that is having problems. All very exciting stuff.


In other news we were sworn in as official volunteers at a nice ceremony at the Canal Museum in Panama city. A representative from the Embassy was there as well as a few other government agency people and tons of current PC volunteers. There was only one other kid that wore a jacket. ( I was told before coming that I should bring a blazer for swear in... in reality half the kids didn´t even bring ties. )

We went out in Panama city to a bar called Unplugged that played tons of rock and metal music yet was still the happening scene. You could rent a hookah their for $5 bucks and there weas tons of vlunteers there to celebrate with us.. Beers were consumed and the most random guest showed up.

DREW from Villanova stepped out of a car while we were hanging out at the bar. I had no idea but he was travelling through the Americas, he had no idea I was doing PC in Panama. He was had just visited a guy on the rugby team Breslin who is doing PC in Guetemala. We caought up on a bunch of things and then said our good byes.

Canal Expansion

Despite all the crazy news in the world about Korea the big news in Panama is a about the Canal Vote. The Vote is to decide if the a new set of locks should be built to accommodate ¨post panamax ships¨ these are boats that are too wide for the canal right now. There is a definite need for this as some of these boats go around soutAmericaca, our just ship there goods across the country. Some boats also wait days to get through to Canal because it is operating at close to full capacity. The government and the Canal authority ( the company that took control of the canal after the US gave to Panama) hava lotot of money invested into the ÿes¨campaign. In trainingaing village many t-shirts and stickers were given out. The ¨no¨campaign is a much more grass roots anti-establishment organization. From what I can see the two sides have the following arguments. YES There is a definite need for a larger canal due to global trade. The canal has long been tied to Panama´s history and a vote no would be turning your back on your history. It will bring money to the country and all the money to build it is going to be collected through raised tolls on boats. I heard that the financing of the canextremelyxtremly hard because you are essentially predicting what global trade will be in years to come. Lastly they say that the construction will provide tons of direct and indirect jobs.
NO
The no basicallybasicly assert that the government is corrupt (corruption is a major problem in Panama) and that all the money will stay with the wealthy people. They also say that there is not environmental study and the impacts could be huge. They say there are also some scenarios where Panama would end up footing the bill too.

On to the pictures.

This is the house will I will be living after I stay with my host family for 3 months. My host family is a mother with a few of her kids ranging from the oldest daughter that has kids of her own to a young child. They live right across the way. The house has 2 rooms in the back: a kitchen and a bedroom and a large porch. Right now a school teacher is living there but she will be moving out.
We had a so called ¨Tom Selleck Challenge¨ you can judge the winncrewis crewis all of the guys (there are only 2 girls) from my training group that are living in the Bocas province. They are all really fun guys and I can´t wait to hang out with them even more. Clockwise from myself is Ryu and Brandon who are Masters International students. This means they are getting their engineering masters by doing Peace Corps, they have taken caqueducts aquaducts and other related things so they are a great resource. They also have known each other from freshman year of college and by shear chance ended up in Panama together and in Bocas. Jack is next, he is fluent in Spanish and also was a former volunteer from Bangledesh. Unfortunatly all the volunteers there were evacuated because of violence. Colin and Kevin are next and they are just straight up chill dudes.

These are all pictures in Vicente´s house. The pic above you can see him in the hammock with his youngest son. As a whole all the kids were very quiet. Above that picture is Roy he is always smiling and is also deaf. There is not much programs for deaf kids here so I´m not sure what is going to happen with him.

I think they are about in the middle of the range of wealth in the community. They could afford to buy rice and sardines occasionally but still do not have any excess of spending money. Vicente is 35 and in the shape of a high school wrestler, he walked way faster than me and still carried a Chacara (traditional bag, you can see small ones hanging) full of banana´s. I´d say it weighed easily 60 pounds.

Valle

I just got back from visiting my site for 5 days. It is pretty big with a few tores, a big soccer field and a brand new school that kids come to from all over the area. I lived with my work partner, Vicente. Vicente is the president of one of the 2 aquaducts in town. He is very quiet but really smart and a very respected person in town. He took me all over and introduced me to different families.

One of the days I hiked up this montain on one of the sides of the valley to go to my work partners farm. Here is the view of the town from way up. The only building you can really see i the school with the blue roof. The government is just finishing this and rumor has it that the President may be taking a helicopter to come see it and meet with people in November.

This is taken from Vicentes house of the new school you can also see some of the soccer field which is all dirt. Every day at 5 they have a soccer game for adults/teenagers. Its pretty competitive and they are all really good. Valle feilds two soccer teams for the local league and 2 baseball teams.
This is Vicent and his freind Benecio on top of the town new water tank. A NGO came in a built this take which has a sand filter without consulting anyone. The NGO did it as a learning project for its workers, however it has really messed up water in part of the town. I{m not exactly sure why but after the tank was built part of the town (the part where I will be living) goes without water for a few days at a time. This will probabably be one of the first things I work on.

This photo is also from the hike to Vicentes finca or farm. You can see the ocean and the nearby port town of Almirante. This is the town where Chiquita Banana is based out of. They have huge boats with the Chiquita logo as well as a big packing plant. All around the region are banana farms.

More random pics

Once again not alot of time to update the blog hopefully next weekend will be better. These are just some more random pictures from my camera. This one above is in Old Panama City. You can see the really old chuch as well as a pretty serious baseball game. The beach looks really nice but you would have to be crazy to swim near the city. It makes Boston harbor look like a pool. I was told there are no sewage treatment plants in Panama city and they just pump it out into the ocean.

The Peace Corps trainees put on a Bingo night to raise money for the library in town. The library was really lacking on books. They had abunch of high school text books from the 70çs and a really old encyclopedia. We raised about $300 from selling bigo cards and food. It was a great community activity, many family made food and helped sell it. Other people set up the sound system and there was even traditional Panamanean dances done by kids. We used peaces of corn for the chips.

In this picture is my buddy Colin and the family of my Spanish teacher. The guy with that hat used to work for Peace Corps and speakes fluent english which was kinda strange to have a redular conversation, or know that he can always understand us talking. You get really used to speaking in english and assuming that no one can understand. At one point my freind came up and said ¨Hey Vicky has 3 kids? she looks really good¨ he didn´t know at all that her husband was there and understood it all. ACKWARD!

This is a picture of my twin sisters in the traditional naguas. My families Ngobe frinds in town made them for the girls.

This week I am going to my site for the first time, and will be meeting up with my work partner to plan out the first 3 months in site.

Tech week and partying

Tech week was a alot of hard work. We built 4 composting latrines for another Ngobe vilage.

A composte latrine is essentially just a big box you poop in and then put sawdust or other dry material in, and in 6 months it turns into composte and you take it out a side door. Not to sound like a huge nerd but these things are really great. They are good because they don't spread shit around so people don't get sick, and you can also use the composte for crops. I like them really though because they don't smell and there are no flies. This may not sound like a huge deal, but I havn't actually sat on a latrine seat since I've been here due to the stench mosquitos and cockroaches which are all overpowering.

The week was a great success on thursday I woke up after sharing a double bed with my buddy Rob and walked to the creek to wash my face. I'm about there and notice a lot of guys down there with a fire going. When I arrive they are slaughtering a 90 pound pig!! In the same river I came to wash up in! They ended up smoking the pig for a few hours with banana leaves. It was soooo good.

No more time in the internet cafe so I need to go.