Time Gets Filled, One Way or Another

I teach from 7:30 to noon or one (often with a free hour or two thrown in) which means that while teaching is the major activity that I'm here for (in addition to the ever-vague "cultural experience"), I've had a lot of free time. Of course, I jump on conversations and adventures when the opportunity arises, but that's not all the time, so I've spent a lot of time reading, thinking, and lying in hammocks. I tried to write a post about a week ago about the balance between those things and some of the other things I've been thinking about, but it was too hard to write, or at least harder than I was willing to deal with when I really don't want to be spending a lot of time on the computer.

Anyway, while I've had a lot of free time, I have done some things that are more exciting to write about than just reading and lying in hammocks. Before I get to special events and adventures, I finally found out during my second week where and when people play soccer. A bunch of guys, mostly in their teens and twenties, play every day on the little dirt field every weekday at 5. They have a good system for deciding who gets to play when, and everyone seems to enjoy it a lot. For me, it's been nice to get exercise and to have activity to fill my time, but actually the biggest benefit has probably been a social one. Weekend nights--especially Sundays for some reason (and not really Fridays at all) people gather at the bar right by my house (actually one of the two that's within two blocks), and the times I've gone since I started playing soccer, there've been a few there who've been super friendly. I learned that most of them are fishermen, which pays reliably enough not to worry about eating, but often not much more than that. A couple of them love the lifestyle--as it was described (in a fashion that had me seriously considering what it'd be like if I moved here permanently, although I'll admit I was a few beers in): you spend all day out on the water with your friends, then come back and play soccer with them, then a few nights a week go out to bars. (I think it's worth noting that the bars here are giant pavillions with one bar at the back. People here call them gardens when it's a laid-back evening of drinking, and discotechs when theres a special event).

Speaking of the fisherman, today was the Saint's Day for the patron saint of the fisherman-- Santa María del Carmen. Yesterday, I went to the mass at the little church out by the beach (with a gorgeous mural in the back of Jesus among fisherman), which was followed by a procession. They carried two floats with statues of Santa María to the beach, then one went on a boat and continued parallel to the other float, which they carried across the beach. Tons of people were there, and lots of them were launching homemade fireworks. I went with my host mom (although a couple of the fisherman had invited me) and as we were leaving, one of the soccer players, insisted on getting me a beer, and as he gave it to me, insisted multiple times that I tell him if I want another. Sometimes the generosity I come across here is really humbling.

Whenever I walk into a bar, lots of soccer guys and friends of the family buy me lots of beers, but whenever I go anywhere at all, I always here lots of little voices shouting, "Benjamin!" And then the next day I'm always told that I was seen. Today in school, at least thirty kids told me that they'd seen me. I never quite know how to respond because literally all they say is, "Benjamin! I saw you!" Half the time they also tell me where they saw me. Sometime I say that it wasn't me, it was my evil twin, but that joke felt played out very quickly. I'm not really sure how I respond these days.

I also took a trip last weekend. It was the midpoint break for our program so we all got together at a beach to take a break from the lives we're leading and to talk about how things have been and how things can be improved. I've been really impressed by the discussion activities we've done, both this past weekend and during our orientation. I also had some really good conversations, taking long walks from one end of the beach to another. One guy in the program is doing research on attitudes toward Panamanian education, and that started some good conversations. As for the beach, it was nice but not exceptional, and kind of a strange place. A group of Israelis bought the entire beach ten or fifteen years ago, and now they've put up a nice hotel, hostal, and restaurant. We ended up hanging out with the owner of the hostal, and the family members of the hotel owners. They're Panamanian, but also not; Israeli but also not; and their lifestyle seems to be showing up at the hostel with a bottle of alcohol to make a mini-party with whoever happens to be there.




Three Differences
1. Houses are much more functional than aesthetic. A lot of them would be considered shacks in the US. Except for the old houses that are made of adobe, pretty much everything is either cinderblock or concrete with corrugated metal roofs. My house has a ceiling, but I think that's a rare luxury that came when my host mom won a lottery a few years back.

2. Speaking of lotteries, people are lottery crazed. Everyone watches when they pull the numbers on TV, and in the cities there are people selling tickets from folding tables on the street every couple of blocks at least. Also, department stores do their own version of a lottery-- basically you load a gift card, and if you win you get ten times what you put, but otherwise you lose nothing. Seems like a smart business strategy to me.

3. As I said, I had a bunch of conversations about Panamanian schools and the ways their different from schools I know in the US. I'm not gonna do much analysis, but I'll mention a couple of things I've noticed (I guess I'm being flexible on how much information constitutes a single difference for this section)

• Even in kindergarten, the kids are expected to spend the whole day sitting at tables or desks. Sometimes they sing and walk around a little, but mostly it seems like they do arts and crafts to keep them quietly and calmly(ish) sitting at their places.
• When the supervisor came from the regional office of the ministry of education and met with all the teachers, she basically talked about nothing but the school's decorations. She encouraged them to find patrons to sponsor banners with the schools values on them. She also critiqued their mural design, told them that their summers should be spent improving the school, and brushed aside the criticism that parts of the school are falling apart.
• The school gives the kids a lot of food-- cookies and milk when they come; and beans, hot dogs, and rice before they leave. And still, almost all of the kids bring a couple of dollars each day to buy sweets and potato salads and flavored mayonaise sandwhichs and fried foods and ice cream and things like that from the school store during their fifteen minute recess. 
• The only classes that aren't core subjects are English/Art (the curriculum combines them, which ends up giving the teacher a lot of flexibility in what to do each day), and Phys. Ed. 
• Teacher's don't provide materials and students have to pay for anything the teachers have to copy for them (a nickel a copy in the office). Supposedly this is covered by a stipend/bonus the government gives to families with kids in schools, but I've heard murmurs that it isn't enough. (I don't know who pays for all of that in the US come to think of it...)
• Kids who don't want to participate do just that. The teachers usually don't argue with them or force them, unless they're being exceptionally disruptive. 

Hope this wasn't excessively rambly... Please feel encouraged to comment or shoot me an email!