The Days are Flying By!

Wow, I only have less than one month! I can hardly believe it. Today when I attended the Rotary meeting, we were already making plans for my ¨going away party.¨ Crazy how time flies. My days have been filled full of wonderful things. Last night I had a presentation at a Rotary Club meeting about 45 minutes from here; it went pretty well (thanks to my translator friend who emailed me my speech in Spanish.....hey, I am not fluent yet.....a woman can ask for help, right?). But wow, trying to prepare a simple PowerPoint is really quite frustrating without my laptop. My friend lended me hers to prepare it, but the whole program was in Spanish, and it was taking me forever and a day to make simple edits. So I went to an internet place that has 2 computers in English. They had the program, so great! Well, it froze up on me again and again....so I tried the other computer. That one, too, froze up on me again and again. Sigh! I am looking forward to buying a new laptop when I get back to the States. One of the directors at my school lended me his laptop, so I finished it quite quickly. So it all worked out....just a lot longer than I anticipated (and actually while I am typing this blog at another internet cafe, I have already had to move to another computer because it froze up on me - it gets a bit frustrating....now this mouse doesn´t work...oh, well). Anyway, I have a couple more presentations before I leave...they are pretty short and sweet...only about 10 minutes. I have just shared some of my work and volunteer experience, my involvement with Rotary, and my future goals and endeavors. It is great to network with some many folks with such varied backgrounds. One gentleman last night offered to show me ¨the real Panama¨...meaning the povery-stricken neighborhoods here. I may have time this weekend to do that.

This morning (and Tuesday morning as well) I took a yoga class that my friend teaches here. It is fabulous because we have the class at a woman´s beautiful home outside on the tiled and covered terrace overlooking the beautiful trees, flowers, etc. with all the birds singing in the background. There are only 4 of us, so it is absolutely wonderful and a great way to start my day. I have decided to take her classes every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Oh, and my friend is planning a yoga retreat to a nearby beautiful beach one of these weekends. I am really looking forward to it!

Next Tuesday, I will be travelling with a few Rotarians to distribute more school supplies to a few other schools. One of them is very remote and will take us awhile to reach. I am looking forward to it! It is so gratifying to see the smiles of children! On Saturday I will be travelling with my host family to the nearby city to go shopping for a formal dress. My host mother´s niece is having a fancy wedding on the 18th in Panama City, so we each need a ¨fancy¨ dress. On Sunday I am planning to make lasagna for my host family. It should be a good weekend with not too much activity. The following weekend, though, we need to catch the bus after my classes (after 5:30pm) and take the bus about 6 hours to Panama City. Every weekend here is different and filled with something news. When my brother comes in a couple weeks, we will see yet another part of the country. Apparently, the beaches are the best around for surfing (not that I will be surfing). There will also be a pollera (the famous cultural dress) festival there, so I am looking forward to getting another rich taste of the Panamanian culture.

Hope everyone is in good health and good spirits! More updates later.