Site Announcement

Today was a big day, we finally found out where we´d be spending the next 2 years of our lives. All and all I haven´t talked to anyone who´s disappointed with where they ended up. Here´s an excerpt from my site description.

Maje Cordilla is a remote Emberá community located in the Panama Este province of central panama. The community relies principally on cultivation of corn, platano, rice, and fish from the river and Lake Bayano for household consumption. Maje cordillera is reached by boat from the main bridge over Lago Bayano. The boat speeds along the open water of Lake Bayano towards the protected Serrania Maje until reaching the river where you will pass into the river canyon upstream to Maje. Traveling up river you are transported back to a simpler time. People along the shore of the river wave as you moor upstream to the small Emberá village.

When I recieved my site information, all the staff told me about what a beautiful site it is, and how ready the community is for a volunteer. I can´t wait either. In a number of ways, this sounds like the perfect opportunity for me. On a superficial level, I will be living along a gorgeous river, and I will be building my very own tree fort, like the one´s in Jake´s site. As far as work goes, the primary project I´m there for is to help finish and teach about the new aqueduct system they have. However, there are numerous other opportunities for secondary projects within the community for me to use my design background, but I won´t know for sure what the possibilities are until I arrive there and start talking with the community.

Speaking of talking with the community, I had a spanish test yesterday afternoon, which basically consisted of me going and chatting it up with a cute spanish tutor. I felt much more comfortable than I did when I first got here, like I can actually have a conversation now and even from time to time make a couple of jokes in Spanish. It´s amazing how much my language has progressed in the last month, but it´s about to get a bit more complicated. Next week I´ll be visiting Jake again as a part of culture week, a week to be educated in the Emberá culture that I´ll be immersed in for the next 2 years, and as a part of that I will start learning the Emberá language as well as continuing developing my spanish. Ay chuleta.

I´ll continue to update as my journey continues.