I’d like you all to meet Oscar. Oscar is my counterpart. That means he’s the
one who requested a Peace Corps Volunteer (aka me!) for the school where he
works in San Francisco. By day, Oscar is an English teacher for third, fifth,
and sixth graders at the Escuela Pedro Arrocha Graell. By night, he’s earning
something like the Panamanian equivalent of a fourth master’s degree and he’s preparing
to study abroad in Washington DC through a program called “Bilingual Panama.”
His English is amazing and he’s one of the most motivated, hard-working people
I’ve ever met.
This was my first impression of what kind of people I’ll be working with for
the next two years in site. Pretty great, huh?
Let me rewind a little. So, two weeks ago on a Friday we got our site announcements.
The following Monday we traveled to the Peace Corps office to meet our
counterparts. The next day we shipped off to our sites with them for the entire
next week. It was kind of a big emotional jump from learning where I’d be going
and then immediately GOING there. Luckily, Oscar was there to smooth the
transition. We talked the whole 4 hour bus ride from Panama City to San
Francisco until we got to the school:
This place is huge! In the morning “turno” (7am to 12pm) Pedro Arrocha is an
elementary school with pre-school through sixth grade. In the afternoon turno (12:15
to 5:15) Pedro Arrocha switches into a middle school (grades 7 through 9) and a
high school with a focus in science (grades 10 through 12). There are four
English teachers in the morning and two in the afternoon who rotate around to
each class several times each week. All six teachers seem excited to work with
me…which is a very happy problem to have. I see a lot of full planners in my
future!
Anyway, I met the principal and got a quick tour of the school. It seems
big, but I’m sure I’ll know it like the back of my hand after three months. It’s
also super nice- they have a library (though I think it only has textbooks, not
books for fun), a computer lab, and a separate classroom for students with
special needs. These are all serious luxuries in Panama.
After the tour of the school, I was whisked away on a tour of some of the
town’s big attractions with Oscar and one of the high school English teachers,
Gonzalo. First on the list was the quesería!!! A little ways north of my town
is a cheese factory/café called El Mirador. The cows and goats live in the
pastures right outside and the little factory where they make the cheese is
attached to the café, so you KNOW it’s fresh. Plus, they add all kinds of great
flavors like jalapeño, strawberry, oregano, raisins, etc. We got a little wheel
of cheese and hung out in the café overlooking the countryside…but not before I
was introduced to some adorable baby goats.
So soft! After the cheese factory we went to church. But, not just any
church…THIS church:
This is the colonial church my director mentioned when he first announced my
site. Now I see why. It was built around 1630 by Spaniards who colonized this
town on their way up the mountains stealing all of Panamá’s gold. The inside is
full of super detailed carved wooden altars depicting scenes from the bible. I
wanted to be impressed, but living next door to a gothic cathedral in Spain
kinda spoiled me as far as churches go…It’s not fair for San Francisco that I
got to see where all the gold ended up before I saw where it came from. This
church is a National Heritage Site though, and tourist groups from all over
Panamá come to see it. I can tell it’s a big source of pride for the people here.
Religion also seems SUPER important to everyone I met this week. Every
person I talked to for more than fifteen minutes asked if I was Catholic. I
have a feeling I’ll be going to church quite a bit in my initial months so I
can integrate into my community. Not this church, though; they hold mass every
evening in the new church they’re building right behind the colonial one:
After the church, my counterparts dropped me and my stuff to my new host
family’s house. I’ll be staying with a brand new host family in San Francisco
for the first three months before I’m allowed to move into a house of my own.
This is also to help me integrate into the community; my host family can
introduce me to people, show me around, and generally help me adjust to life in
San Fran. The funny thing about my host family is that the mom is also an
English teacher at the school, so she’ll be my mom AND my co-worker. So that’s
pretty cool!
Anyway, that first day my host mom wasn’t home yet because (like Oscar, and,
I’m assuming, most of the other teachers at Pedro Arrocha) she works a second
job. So the only people home were my new 8 year old host brother, Kyle, and his
tutor/babysitter, Jessica. Kyle was watching Warm Bodies, so we immediately
bonded over our mutual love for zombies haha. I sat and made friends with
Jessica for a while and then it was time for dinner.
My school community did a really cool thing for me this week: for dinner
three nights this week I went over to other people’s houses and ate with their
families. The first night I ate with a second grade teacher, another night with
a third grade teacher, and another night with the assistant principal. This was
an amazing opportunity to get to know more than just my host family and
everyone made me feel SO welcome in their homes. Each night I spent hours
talking to them about my life, travels, Peace Corps, their families, etc.
That first night I met the rest of my host family: my host mom, Militza, and
my 15 year old host sister, Genesis. They are both super nice. Honestly, I
can’t stress enough how much I already love my San Fran host family. Militza
reminds me a lot of my real mom- she’s hilarious and smart, she works
unbelievably hard, and she has a HUGE heart. This is her teaching some second
graders numbers in English:
There’s so much I could say about my host family, I could write a whole blog
post just about how much they helped in changing my attitude about getting San
Francisco as a site placement. Suffice it to say that people really do make a
place.
And man, San Francisco’s got muy buena gente (good people). Over the course
of this visit I was introduced to what felt like every teacher and public
official in the whole town and all their families. One afternoon I just went
for a walk by myself around town and three different families invited me onto
their porch for a drink or a mango, curious who I was and wanting to make me
feel welcome.
I only spent a week in San Francisco, but I can imagine myself living there
for two years. It already feels familiar…a suburb of a bigger city…it’s like a
Panamanian version of where I grew up in the states! It’s definitely going to
be a DIFFERENT experience from how I pictured my service when I was preparing
for Peace Corps in Panama. But just because I’m not living in a hut in the
jungle with an indigenous tribe doesn’t mean I can’t make a huge difference in
the lives of my gente here in San Francisco. I’m so excited to get started. :)
