Panama Update #25
August 10, 2008
Yesterday (Saturday) we went for an early hike up to the top of Cerro Ancon, the hill where we live. It took about an hour and a half round-trip. We saw several groups of bikers along the way, about 20 in total. The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent resting and reading. Nikki spent most of the day working on some work left over from her Ethiopia projects.
I am still trying to figure out how to watch the Olympics on-line from here. NBCOlympics.com does not broadcast outside of the US. We don't have a TV, but have heard that it is difficult to pick up a clear channel. Also, we have been told that it broadcasts in Spanish and focuses on the 4 or 5 Panamanian athletes over and over again. Doing a search on Google comes up with some suggestions that don't seem to work. The other possibility is to buy a cable link of some kind but have not decided on that yet.
Last night we went over to a house of some colleagues of Nikki. It was a fundraiser for 3 of the students from Colombia who want to go to a conference in the US. They cooked a nice dinner and charged the guests $15 each. They had about 20 guests, so I don't know if it was enough to reach their fundraising goals. They had salad with homemade blue cheese dressing, humus dip, potatoe puree, and assorted things to snack on like carrots, bread, and marinated sliced tomatoes. The main course was BBQ chicken, but we filled up on the side dishes. We stayed a couple of hours and got some more practice in Spanish while visiting with the other guests. At the party, one of the guests signed up for some English tutoring lessons, possibly up to 6 hours a week. We will probably start with 3 hours a week and see how it goes. My schedule is filling up and I think there are others who are interested in English tutoring. It is convenient to do it at a cafeteria on-site without having to take a taxi anywhere.
