shakira, nuevos amigos y la llegada de mi amor

Shakira

I couldn't resist seeing a Latin American superstar in Latin America. I convinced Christine she needed to come as well and we arranged for a driver knowing the traffic would be insane. When we arrived at Figali Convention Center on the causeway the parking lots were full of cars and people and grills cooking a variety of pre-concert sausages. Panamanians love their salchichas (hot dogs). The atmosphere reminded me more of a Big Ten football tailgate than a pre-concert party. Once we made our way through security we muscled our way toward the front of the standing-only section. Three local bands opened for Shakira. They didn't leave much of an impression on me because a). They weren't very good and b). They each only played one song. However, a 4-man boy-band did come out complete with cheesy choreography to match their cheesy lyrics; it was slightly reminiscent of the NSYNC/BSB craze from the 90s. Between the song of the third band and Shakira's opening we stood around waiting for over an hour (classic Latin America). People were getting restless and pushing and cheering for her. By the time she finally came out at 10 pm everyone freaked. The sections ahead of us had chairs so they stood on top of them causing more hostility within our section. They threw trash and cans and even a couple bottles while screaming expletives urging them to get off their chairs--all of the fuss was to no avail. I stood on my tip-toes to occasionally get a glimpse of Shakira but mostly just tried to watch from the screens. She sang all of her hits, brought a few girls on stage, danced like I've never seen anyone dance, never seemed out of breath (there had to be some lip-synching there) and the crowd responded. Every local knew every single word to every single song; they were completely enamored with her. It was a really really cool environment and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it. The next day I was a little sluggish at work (running on only 5 hours of sleep) but it was all worth it.

Nuevos Amigos

On Sunday April 17 I finally got an invitation from one of my students to come hang out with her, her brother and one of her friends. I had given my phone number and email to all of my students in January but hadn't heard from any of them until Andreina called on Saturday. She picked me up and we drove to the causeway. We talked in a mix of English and Spanish, walked around and then had dinner together at a restaurant near my house. It was so nice to finally feel welcomed by one of my students. Her friend Nataly that joined us is Ecuadorian so it was cool to talk about Ecuador and Galapagos a little bit too. Now, a highlight of the difference between my experience with the people of the two countries. Within a few hours of meeting them I was explaining how I would need a ride to the airport on April 20th to get Jack. Nataly said, "My father will do it." I said, "Oh, is he a driver?" She said, "No, I just know he'd like to do it." It was great to have a personal ride from a new friend to get Jack.

La llegada de mi amor

The next couple days were kind of a whir as I was anticipating Jack's arrival. When I finally saw him at the airport on Wednesday night it was kind of like a dream. I couldn't believe he was here after months of counting down to his trip. We timed his trip so that his first day here marked my first day of vacation. On Thursday I took him to my beloved Parque Omar, went swimming at Boris' place and then got together with a bunch of my friends to help welcome Jack to Panama. I was happy so many of my new friends came out to meet him and hang out with us at Los Cedros. Since I was hosting, I felt inclined to buy the drinks and hookah for the group and food for me and Jack. It was a shockingly low $30 for everything. Very fun night with fun friends. And the ETAs from Venezuela joined us for a couple hours. It was nice to share stories and experiences with them and reinforce that I'm not the only one going through a lot of what I've already experienced.

Panama City completely shuts down on Good Friday. I didn't even need my earplugs on Thursday night/Friday morning. My ears appreciated the vacation. Jack and I walked around the city for a while and felt like we were in a Zombie movie. We went to the mall and the only thing open there was the movie theater. We decided on RIO 3D and I missed the minor detail that it was in Spanish; Jack doesn't speak Spanish... Since it was an animated movie he was able to get the gist of everything and I would translate some of the details for him.

Vacation

I have more to tell you about Easter weekend including an adventure we took to El Valle. We had a great time there but some interesting stories arose within those 24 hours. Unfortunately for you, I have to leave you with that cliffhanger. Fortunately for me, I'm leaving in 15 minutes for vacation with Jack. We're heading up to Isla Grande (Caribbean side) for the next five days to soak up the sun on the beach and relax together. I'll be sure to post again next weekend about El Valle and Isla Grande.

Cuídate.

habla, habla, habla!

Over the last 10 days I've really started to get in to my new roles. Christine and I have established a great mentor-mentee relationship in CELI. I am leading a high-level, two-hour conversation class two days/week. Many of these students have an extensive travel background, high vocabulary and really just want to work on their accents, fluency and pronunciation. Our first class was March 31st. I only had two students, Lurlyne and Mabel, so we focused a lot on just getting to know each other and discussing greetings/introductions. A very interesting cultural conversation arose from this topic. In the States we show interest in new people by asking them a lot of questions related to their job, where they went to school, etc. In Panama, however, those questions are saved for the second or third meeting and upfront people are often asked more "personal" questions regarding their marital status, if they have children, etc. This discussion was like a smack in the face to me; I had been wondering why people felt cold on first meeting and why cab drivers always asked if I was married. Turns out this is cultural norm for them.

This week I had five more students and we had two action-packed days working on pronunciation of the -ed ending (passed, stayed, crashed, waited, etc) and -s, -es ending (stays, washes, sleeps, etc.). As native English speakers we don't consider these naturally-acquired skills. However, the -ed and -es endings are really difficult for non-native speakers, especially native Spanish speakers. We spent half of each class doing different practices for these pronunciations and they were so engaged. I told Christine after that I felt almost out of control of the class because they were so in to it and wanted so much information and so much practice. But, in a way, I kind of liked it because they were so excited. They all said that in every English class they'd ever had they had never learned the distinction of these sounds. These sounds are really important to English and especially to these students because they want to obtain a more native accent.

I also started the CELI conversation club and a conversation club for a few Latina faculty. The CELI club has had a couple dedicated students attend and we did similar activities to the conversation class (greetings/intros and pronunciation). For the Latina faculty, I'm meeting with four women three times each week. We have decided to have "Movie Mondays" with follow-up discussion on Wednesdays and Fridays. Since we're a group of women we're starting out with a chick flick (and I'm sure many more to come).

On Friday I went to my first class at Spanish Panama. The teacher was great and really just got us talking and helping us detect our errors. She also gave us some uniquely Panamanian words such as chombo and tinaca. Chombo is a derrogatory word used to describe a black Panamanian but it has an interesting linguistic story. The young men that worked and cleaned the bathrooms in the canal zone were often black and were called john boys. To the Panamanian ear this sounded like "chombo" (if you say one right after the other you can hear the similarity) and thus developed chombo. Tinaca is a word for the trash pick-up spot. A company that set up these spots was called Tin & Co, thus tinaca. Language is so cool.

Finally, a social life! I've spent the first three months here not knowing many people in their 20s. I've probably mentioned Christine in almost every post because I'm really grateful for her sharing her space with me and for being such a great mentor to me, but I have been in desperate need of friends my age. A fellow ETA in Costa Rica suggested I create a couchsurfing profile because she had been really successful meeting people in CR with it. Couchsurfing is sort of like facebook for hitchhiking. It's a network of people willing to host or looking to be hosted in countries and cities worldwide. I found Jessie on couchsurfing. I read that she and her Panamanian husband had moved here in June and that she did a Fulbright in Nicaragua a few years ago. I sent her a message right away and was relieved when she replied within 24 hours. She and Jorge had just purchased an apartment located right between my place and Universidad Latina and they invited me over as their first guest. As we were sipping cinnamon vanilla tea, I sort of unloaded on her (sorry Jessie!). I let her know how frustrating it had been to feel so alone here and how my program hadn't been exactly what I had imagined for the first 3 months. She was very sympathetic and shared similar stories of her first three months in Panama when she was unemployed and living at her new in-laws' home. She invited me to a networking event the following night at Casa Nikki--a posh bar at MultiPlaza Mall near my house.

I was determined to go to this event. Most of you know this is not really my thing. I don't feel super comfortable in a big room full of people I've never seen or spoken to in my life. But I pushed myself outside the box, went up to strangers, sparked conversations and met some really great (young!) people, including another Iowan! Nic is from Iowa, Jackie from Houston, Ana from Panama, Boris from Guadalupe and Alex from St. Louis. I spent a couple of hours there, sipped a couple mojitos and went home feeling refreshed, rejuvenated and excited to have met nice people who will hopefully become friends while I'm still here and even after I leave. Boris is hosting a pool party tomorrow that I'll go to and establish myself a little more with this new group.

The rainy season is here in full force, unfortunately. I didn't think it would start until May, but it seems to have started a little earlier than normal. The humidity has noticeably increased and the heavy showers in the afternoon are an indication that summer is officially over in Panama. Guess I'm going to have to get used to running through puddles, bringing an umbrella with me everywhere and sporting my bright green rain jacket (my graduation present will be used on a daily basis, Dad!).

A few things I forgot to mention in the last post:

1. LAS tests are DONE. These were the proficiency tests that the Access students took at the end of their program last year. With Christine, Isabel and Temi, I paged through hundreds of these tests grading dictations, multiple choice, sentence completion, picture descriptions and writing prompts. I have a whole new appreciation for teachers' work in grading tests. This was an insanely long process, but I finally got all the scores tabulated and they have been sent to a statistician in California for analysis. Too bad you can't grade language proficiency with ScanTrons...

2. Sra. Stiles was here! One of my high school Spanish teachers decided to spend her spring break in Panama and we spent a day together. We strolled around and had a nice lunch in Casco Viejo, I showed her the university and then we ate a great traditional dinner at Las Tinajas. We also got to see a performance of traditional Panamanian dance, music and dress. And I was dragged up on stage with one of the dancers. I wish I had the Latin instinct for rhythm but I think I'm just another white girl. Latinos move so effortlessly as if the music pulses through their bodies directing each movement with ease and finesse. I felt like I had a huge sign on my forehead that said "GRINGA." But I guess it was sort of fun; plus dancer that brought me up on stage had big brown eyes and a sweet smile that it was just hard to turn down. Don't worry Jack I love you dearly and he and I kept the arms'-length-apart-middle-school-dance rule.

3. Quinten is getting big! He's 9 weeks old and he's starting to fill out. He even has squeezable cheeks now :) I can't wait to scoop him up in December.

4. I'll be crashing in a new place for the last few months I'm here. Since this apartment is for the fellow (Christine's position) it has to be cleared for new fellow to move in when they start in August. Maybe one of my new friends from the networking event can help me find a place. Ideally, I'd like to land with one or two 20-somethings and just have a lot of fun my last 3.5 months here. But we'll see. I have until the end of July to figure something out.

5. I'm going to see SHAKIRA on Tuesday. I'm not going to bring my camera because I don't want it to get stolen/damaged so I'll try to take many mental pictures and describe the experience for you to the best of my abilities. I'm not a huge Shakira fan, but she's a Latin star and I'm in Latin America...couldn't let the opportunity slip away.

Cuídate.