Peace Corps Family

Some times I think of Peace Corps Panama like a big extended surrogate family. This past weekend I attended the wedding ofTess Sparks. She was the volunteer in my town before me and also the tech trainer for our group of environmental health volunteers. She got married to a Panamanian architect named Gabriel in the old city of Panama.

St. Francis of Assisi Chapel was huge!
Flower children and ring bearers
The reception was at a Hindu Temple banquet hall on a large hill overlooking the city. There was a DJ a live tipico band. Later while most people were talking at there tables a brass band marched in! It was great to see so many people dancing and having a great time. The dance floor was full of surrogate family: the PC doctor, the directors of the various PC sectors, secretaries and language teachers even the country director and his daughter!

I also got to meet some volunteers that lived and worked around my area and settle some tall tales about them as well as update them on the big happenings in the area.

This past weekend was also Melissa and myself´s 1 year anniversary! We celebrated with champagne in a a nice hotel in Panama City.

In January (I know I have not updated the blog in a while) there was another familiar event when several people came to visit my town to see the work completed on the aqueduct. Above left to right there is the local mason, Tess (the one that just got married), the director of the Environmental Health program, the Waterlines ( the NGO sponsoring the project) mason and inspector, the Country director Peter Redmond, SpongeBob, and members of the a Rotary club which also sponsored the project.

They all came for the official inauguration of the aqueduct with the town. The whole town came out for a big party with two slaughtered pigs, official dedications, the story of how the aqueduct came to be and a piñata!

Words from the two bossmen, Peter Redmond and the aqueduct President Emilio.
This is Carmen, the local women´s group president with the Country Directors daughter. The women´s group gave many of their hand stitched bags as a token of appreciation.

Here´s the country director with most of his family walking the muddy trail to Nudobidi. He says they try to get out to visit people as much as is possible because it reminds the kids of what the country outside of Panama City is like. This was his family´s first time to a Ngobe community in Bocas del Toro.