Panama Update #9
Monday, July 21
I became an official volunteer at the Smithsonian Tropical Reseaerch Institute today. They gave me a badge and it comes with certain privileges. One of the big ones is that you can get in and out of the main gates just by flashing the badge and not having to sign in. That same badge gets you in and out of the office buildings 24 hours a day by simply holding it up to a scanner. You can also check out blank books and use the internet hook-ups in the offices. To become a volunteer you need to find a sponsor and it has to be approved by some department head. You can request to volunteer in any department or location, from helping in the library to assisting in field work. I thought about different options, including giving tours at the marine-life museum, but in the end decided to assist Nikki a couple of hours a week. She has a whole list of activities that she would like me to help her with. She submitted it and it was approved.
Yesterday I sent my resume to the top Panama City high school for native Panamanians. It is called Academia Interamericana de Panama. It is bilingual, but differs from the 2 International High Schools that are here because those schools serve children of international residents of Panama. One of the women who works in Human Resources at the blank has a daughter going there and she gave me the name and website of the schoool. They called me today, which is really quick and totally unexpected. I asked if they had a particular job opening and she said there was no opening now but may be in the future. She wanted to get to know me in person so we arranged to meet on Thursday at 10:00 AM. I have a feeling they want me to teach an English class, which I think would be a nice change from the counseling and math jobs I have had in the past. The only problem I can see right away is that the school is quite a distance from here, at least a 30 minute taxi ride depending on the traffic. I have already turned down 2 full-time math positions in two different schools since I am only interested in finding something part-time. There are other projects I am involved with and full-time would interfere too much with those. I am sure I will have more to say about it after our meeting on Thursday.
In the evening we went to see the movie Batman at one of the local malls. You can see the dubbed in Spanish version or the English version with Spanish subtitles. We found a time that had the English version. The theatre had a large screen and stadium seating. It was not crowded, but about what you would expect for a Monday night. I thought the crowd would be mostly English speakers, but from the listening to the people around us that was not the case.
Tuesday, July 22
We found out that some of the other apartments in our building hire a local cleaning lady to come in once a week. Our little apartment is due for a good cleaning so we looked into it. She was in the building today cleaning another apartment and someone we knew in the building introduced us to her. We brought her into our apartment and described to her in sign language and Spanish what we wanted done. She will also do the laundry in the free machines that are upstairs and shared by the building. The going rate is $15 for the day. We arranged for her first day to be Friday starting at 8:00 AM, so we will see how it goes.
This afternoon I discovered that all sorts of grocery items can be ordered on Amazon and delivered blank at a blank rate since this an blank address like they use for blank and all blank property overseas. They have all sorts of the products we like such as protein bars, shampoo, tea, vitmins, and soaps that we can't find here. We were already contemplating requesting that someone send us certain products, but it looks like that will not be necessary now. Almost any product you can dream of, they seem to have, so we are working on a list.
This evening, from 5:15-6:30, was the first Yoga class that I have given here. We used the library after hours and cleared aside some of the tables. We did a standard Himalayan style class that I am trained in, which emphasizes gentle stretches, diaphragmatic breathing, and guided relaxations. There was loud thunder throughout the class, which I guess was Panama's way of welcoming the Himilayan Style Yoga to their country. As far as I can tell, this style of Yoga is not taught anywhere else here. Sixteen people showed up and I think they liked it, but we will see if they come back again. For people that are used to jumping around more, the class would probably seem pretty slow. But if they feel better and more relaxed at the end, that is priceless. The next class is scheduled for Thursday at the same time.
