Panama, where street hustlers are made

Panama is the place where street hustlers are made. At ever corner there is someone trying to sell you something, fruits, vegetables, candy, bootleg cds, movies, whatever. The strangest thing I have seen so far are people walking around selling the most random things like qtips and super glue. Like as if I were walking down the street and someone said hey I’m selling qtips and super glue,, ..Oh snaps that’s exactly what I need for my for my qtip house that I am making!!! Someone has to be buying it if every street vendor has them!! So I’ve decided that if anyone approaches me on the street I just keep walking or if they somehow stop me, I only speak to them in English. Every so often I run into this lady trying to sell me the most random stuff. The first time I saw her she said Hey my brother, Bocas or Colon. (Bocas and Colon are the places here where most of the black people live). In english I said.. neither I’m from the states.. Then she tried to sell me some used brown tap shoes. Where shot got tap shoes, I do not know but I’m pretty sure that I don’t need any. I said no then she said ok, give me a dollar. I just walked off. Two days later she saw me at a restaurant eating and she tried to sell me a pen. I again sad no, then she said give me a quarter. Two weeks later I just finished ordering food and I heard someone from across the room yelling Hey..Papi.. Papi.. Mi amor..buy this mirror..I know you speak Spanish, I heard you clearly speak it..Heeeeyy, Heeeeey. I just kept on eating as if I couldn’t understand trying to hold in my laugher. After a few minutes of her yelling the man behind me starting laughing for me. The most awkward one was when I went to go buy a phone card for my cell phone. I usually go to the same place to get them, actually it was the same place where a roach jumped out of my man bag. A lady that was walking by heard me speak to the vendor an immediately stopped me and asked what my name was. I was kinda confused why she went out of her way to meet me. I looked her up and down and she reminded me of a real estate agent. Her hair was recently done and she was dressed up nicely. I told her my name then she asked where I was from. As soon as she asked that I looked over her shoulder and saw the guy who just sold me the phone card shaking his head as mouthing NNOOOOOOOOOO. That’s when she asked me if I would like to acostar with her for 20 dollars. Then I said no thank you but ask they guy behind you, I think he might.

Right now it’s pretty active in parts of Panama. Recently there has been a law passed that will allow mining here in the west side of Panama. This will allow outside companies primarily foreign to come to Panama for copper and gold deposits which may be amongst the highest in the world. The environment will be destroyed and the indigenous people that live there will be drastically affected. It’s horrible what will happen to these people if they follow through with the mining. A friend of mine in Ecuador told me that in situations like this the poor people will be exploited while the rich who caused all of this will be sitting on an island drinking mai tais. It’s sad but true. So there has been protest all over, and people storming the streets with their signs yelling. These people are clearly pissed. The interAmericana highway has been blocked for days because of the protest, making traveling to Panama City a pain. I hope that hurry up and settle this because I need to get my mail in Panama City. One of my biggest goals here is to stay off the news, so Im going to keep myself here and stay far away from riots as possible.

Ungrateful little farts

Recently I decided to try a new venture. The first day I arrived here in Panama I decided that I was not going to teach English. I didn’t want to get involved in trying to explain the grammar and why this word changes here and why not there. Most definitely knowing that I have bad grammar myself. How am I supposed to teach good English grammar when I always confuse when to use, was and where. After being here a few months, many people have wanted me to teach them English, or have asked me to proofread their English assignment. It reminds me of how I use to ask my Spanish speaking friends to edit my papers at the last minute. They are now getting their payback. I’ll just being walking down the street and someone would stop me and ask are you the Peace Corps volunteer, could you edit my paper? Sure when?…Uhm its due in 2 hours.

I figured sooner or later I would have to teach an English class, so I did research on how to conduct a class and use different activities to keep the class from being bored. I asked other volunteers for materials and ideas on how to do it effectively. I also wanted to know how the Panamanians taught English to other Panamanians. So I got on the internet and found a language institute that taught Spanish to Americans and English to Panamanians. It is located in Boquete about an hour away from me. I called them and asked if I could help with their classes and sit in. The lady on the phone said sure, can you meet me here in the office. When I arrived in Boquete, it was like I was back in the United States. Everyone speaks English and it is full of retired Americans. It looked like there were more Americans than Panamanians. It’s kinda like a Cuban going to Miami. When I found the office I told them who I was and they asked me, when I can start teaching? I was like WWWHHHHOOOOAAAA. I was interested in learning how yall teach. Then the guy told me that they no longer had a teacher because it is volunteer based and the last teacher left. I figured it would be good practice for when school started, so I agreed. He told me that they didn’t have a curriculum in place so I would have to make up my own materials and he didn’t really know their levels, he thought they may be intermediate. So I went home and started making a curriculum for basic and intermediate students, since I was not sure on their levels. And I had to make sure I knew what I was going to talk about. I didn’t want to be in front of the students stuttering and looking I have no idea what I was doing. This process took me around 3 hours. I traveled back to Boquete at the assigned time of class and all of the students arrived on time. I started off with the basic activities to see what they knew. They knocked out each activity without any effort. So I decided to do harder activities and asked them what else they wanted to learn. They had no idea, so I just suggested some things to them and started lecturing. At the end of the class I actually thought it was fun and I was excited to start the next one. I then told then IN SPANISH that I will be back Wednesday to teach the next class. So I went home and prepared the next lesson, but 3 times harder. And I wanted that the students have multiple classes a week, but I couldn’t afford to make the trip up there every day. So I coordinated with volunteers that live near me, and they agreed that they would take a day of the week and help teach. It was all set up, the students would have multiple teaching styles and they would get English classes 3 to 4 times a week for free. I felt proud of myself. When Wednesday came I hopped on the bus and went to Boquete. I was ready, with my man bag full of dictionaries and candy for one of the activities. I got there about 30 minutes early to make sure I had everything in order. 530 came..no students..545..no students….6 oclock..no students. I walked up to the director and asked him, where are the students? He then called them and they told him that they thought the class was only Mondays. Then he told me maybe they didn’t understand that I was going to be here today. I was like; my Spanish isn’t THAT BAD that they couldn’t understand me. I said OK, whatever, I’ll be back Monday. For some reason it didn’t bother me that much. Fast forward to Monday. Before I traveled to Boquete I went back over my lesson plans and thought of some harder activities to do. This time I arrived at exactly at 530 but there were no students again. A female director this time walked up to me and said are you Alec. Yes I am. Are you the person that came last week and the students didn’t show up? Yea that’s me. Well the students aren’t going to be here today because they don’t want to learn things that they already know. I said, well I had no idea what they already knew so I had to start with the basics, once I realized that they were a bit more advanced I started making things harder for them, and besides I am a native speaker of English I will always have something more to teach them. I have been speaker English since BIRTH. She said well they wanted to learn more advanced things, Ill give you a call if there is any change. I got up and walked out the office calmly and found the bus stop. It wasn’t until I realized that I would have to wait 30 minutes to an hour for the next bus the frustration kicked in. HOLD UP, YOU COULDN’T HAVE CALLED ME BEFORE I WASTED MY TIME AND MONEY COMING DOWN HERE, LITTLE UNGRATEUL FARTS. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper. When I got home I told the other volunteers that were going to help with the class the story, and they told me I don’t want anything to do with that.

I woke up the next morning to a phone call from the same director of the language institute, asking me can I come back or send another person to teach the English class. All I could think was ARE YOU SERIOUS, YOU ASK ME TO COME BACK WITHOUT AN APOLOGY OR ANYTHING. But it’s funny how after all of that I still wanted to teach the class. But if I figured that if I went back like she asked, no one would learn the lesson that wasting people’s time like that is NOT COOL. I didn’t really blame the students too much because of their age. Sometimes we don’t learn how to appreciate something until we are older. I admit that I didn’t always appreciate the opportunities that were given to me when I was younger. However the director still did annoy me, because she didn’t call me and explain the situation before I traveled up there the day before. I then calmly told her because of the things that happened earlier I was a bit frustrated and didn’t want it to happen again. So if after a month from today you do not have a teacher, you can call me back and I’ll let you know if I am available.