Project Leadership and Management (PLM)

Today was the last day of our 3rd in service training. It was Tuesday throughThursday. We each brought someone from our site who we work with currently or plan to work with in the future. I brought Feliciano and Lee brought Teofilo. They were awesome! We all tried to speak only in Spanish the whole time because most of the people we brought from our communities only speak Spanish. That was kind of hard because we usually speak English with other volunteers but it would have been kind of inconsiderate. It was good practice anyway.

The people in the first picture are Feliciano, me, Steph, her work counterpart, and Teofilo. This was Feliciano and Teofilo´s first trip to the beach in the day time. There first trip ever to the beach was when they came to the same training facility in July to meet us and take us to visit our site for the first time. After a day of training a group of us walked down to the beach (about a mile away). The moon was really bright so that was beautiful. I´m glad they got to see it in the daylight this time though.

The next picture is from one of the dinamicas. We usually start each class-like session with a game or an activity where you have to move around and interact. This one is called Juana Chichi. Notice Lee being squished between Nate and Teofilo.

The 3rd picture is the view from the balcony of Noriega´s beach house. The U.S. bombed it in 1989 when they were after him. They finally caught up with him at the Vatican and he ended up in prison in Miami. He was released this past fall (it was a pretty hot topic here in Panama for a while). There was a lot of speculation about where he might be going. He ended up in prison in France. Anyway, the house is a mess and there is a lot of broken glass and rubble but you can tell it was beautiful in its day.