Panama Thursday - almost there...

I can't focus on schoolwork until I finish these! Plus, someone in the apartment above (or beside or under, who knows?) us is really loving the bass in their music.

To my dismay, I opened my Panama book and found a mere paragraph about our Thursday in San Miguel Centro, and nothing about Friday or Saturday. Sad day! So, the following is pure, unassisted memory. Unless I go run and ask Lauren.

Thursday brought another work day on the school/library and map. I'm pretty sure Sam and I did Alaska today, painstakingly complete with all of its little specks - er, islands. Tiny land masses.

Then - (drumroll) one of the most epic parts of the trip. To begin the concrete-making process, we hauled rocks up from the river.

Remember that ridiculous hill from Wednesday? This hill was extremely similar. While half of our group continued the map, half of us were given sacks, instructed to put on our trusty rubber boots, and pointed down the hill with a grin by our fellow Panamanians.

We waded into the river, past our boot level (resulting in water-filled boots), and were greeted by two teenage guys with shovels. The girls averaged four to six scoops (these were generous shovelfuls) per trip. Sam and Kevin did slightly more, and we were all owned by the locals, who each took about 10 scoops per trip. One time I did joke with the guys by holding up ten fingers - they refused.

Wading back across, we had to empty our boots, lest we trudged up the hill with 40 lbs of rocks and 5 pounds of extra water.

Needless to say, at the end of the day, our socks were a little wet.

Tonight was our farewell dinner with our host families, at the church again. We got to be omnivores tonight versus the vegetarians we told them we were. Hope that didn't offend or confuse them. Alfredo and Kaylen almost had an eating contest, but I'm pretty sure Alfredo was already ahead by 3 bowls.

(we got to wear skirts!)

With our bellies full, we waddled over to...I'm not sure how to describe it - it was a large shelter with various seating, a table at the front. Lit by lamps and candles. Here, we had a fiesta! We got to buy the special cucua products and support their community, followed by dancing. (And, I got to play another Panamanian violin!)

The only unfortunate thing was that our host father showed up drunk, which isn't the same in their culture because they don't have it much at all. Otherwise, we approached the local teenage guys and basically pulled them out onto the dance floor. (It's not like we were booty dancing or anything - their dancing is the continuous circular Cumbia dance!)

What a fun night!