I guess I'll start with my solo trip to el Parque Internacional La Amistad which is a nice nature park that is right by the Costa Rican border. Even the bus ride from David to Cerro Punta (where it's located) provided some beautiful sights as we passed through the towns of Volcan and Cerro Punta. Keep in mind that for this whole trip, I didn't really know what I was doing/where I was going--I just decided the night before that I wanted to go out and explore so I found this place in my travel book and decided I'd go check it out. I was thinking the bus ride would be about half an hour and that it would be obvious where I should get off...so, after multiple stops and about 45 minutes with still no idea of where I was/where I should get off, I decided to become amigos with the bus driver. Thankfully, after another hour and a half (of me wondering if he understood what we had talked about), he told me I should get off and where to go to catch a taxi to the park. Once I got to the park, I stopped for a quick lunch inside and was surrounded by humming birds throughout the meal--unfortunately, these were the only animals I was going to see that day. I was really hoping to see some of Panama's wildlife as the book/park's website indicated 5 different species of cat, among other animals, lived in the park, but with the exception of a few birds along the way, no luck in that aspect. However, the nature, which included waterfalls, large old trees, streams, moss-covered bridges, etc, was beautiful. It was about a 5 hour hike in total, and there wasn't a minute of easy trekking. It was misting/lightly raining consistently throughout and, because the trails consisted mostly of rock, you can imagine the difficulty of going up and downhill on these wet rocks, pieces of wood, descending broken stairs, etc. I might have slipped and almost died once, but since I went by myself, those are things I will never have to admit to--I was flawless, best hiker this world has ever seen.
This past week I had a lot of fun with the reading club I taught. We worked on prefixes, suffixes and root words, focusing on a few in particular. After about 50 minutes of instruction and practice, I set up a Jeopardy powerpoint that we played as a class for the next 40 or so minutes. My students hadn't heard of the game show before which made it a cool and new game for them to do in class. They really enjoyed the game and the competition, so I'm thinking I'll have to utilize it again for future assessments.
Positive comments from my students have also been rewarding as some have come up and talked to me about how various things make a lot more sense after tutor sessions or clubs than when their teacher explained it to them (don't tell) as well as becoming more interested in reading. They are realizing they can visualize the stories just like movies (as I tend to act things out when I read aloud to them; embarrassing I know, but what are ya gonna do) yet understand the characters on a deeper level than they would in the movies--like I said, a main goal of mine is to go against the culture here and get them enjoying reading in order to eventually improve their comprehension skills.
I have recently made a few really good friends both from UNACHI and Casa Esperanza. Luis, who went to Casa Esperanza as a kid (20 now), invited me to hang out today and go to a public pool here in David (which I didn't know existed) where I was finally able to take advantage of the hot weather here instead of just sweating off 5 pounds a day in khakis and a collared shirt. I've also finally found a great gym to quench my desire for pick-up basketball--15-20 guys playing pick-up everyday at 5 o'clock..I am content once again.
I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from Casa Esperanza...talk to you all soon.
Tomalo con calma.
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