The new school year has just begun and it’s time for me to get on the grind. During the vacation I didn’t really do much, only plan activities for the year. So as soon as I realized school was starting in a week I jumped into action. Last week began the planning week for the entire faculty in the school. From 8 in the morning till 12 all of the teachers were required to go to the school and listen to the school changes and the grades that they are now required to teach. The first day of the meeting I quickly realized that I have been slacking horrible on studying Spanish. About 80 percent of the meeting I did not understand, so I sat there for 4 hours daydreaming about all the different types of food I was going to eat when I get back to the states and reading over the articles that they gave in my folder. I didn’t want to spend another day torturing myself like that so I decided to go to Panama City early for errands I needed to run. One of the things I needed to do was go to the office in the city and make as many copies of a book as I could and lug them back to the school. The book is by a friend of mine named Giovanni Gonzalez and it addresses topics such as self esteem and reaching ones dreams. Over the summer I have been trying to create a creative way to get the students to read it, but I had to first get more copies to distribute. Also I had to pick up my mail in the city. It’s a 7 hour trip so I jumped onto the midnight bus and arrived in the city early Tuesday morning.
If you don’t know by now, Panama City is very modern. It’s a place full of tourist and Americans that decided to escape from the states for whatever reason. So more or less, its kind of like being in a small city in the states. There are some aspects about the city that I like and there are others that I completely hate. Like how it seems that everyone is trying to cheat you. As soon as someone hears a foreign accent, Bam!! The price doubles. Especially with the taxi drivers. They will all of a sudden bump up the price or literally steal your money, by not giving you your change. This isn’t the wild west where you can just shoot someone for cheating you are start punching them in the face. All you can really do is just be calm about it and don’t let it bother you. I vowed that I would not let another taxi driver take me for a fool again, so I carry a wad full of ones so I can always give exact change. So when I go to the city, I don’t play around, I do what I need to do and try to leave as soon as possible. After spending the afternoon making all the copies I needed to make and meeting a friend of mine for lunch to get my package I was worn out. I decided to stay in the city that night and take the first bus out in the morning. So I had to catch a taxi to get to the hostel where I was going to stay. I thought everything would be under control. I negotiated a price with the taxi driver before I jumped in and thought I had a pocket full of ones. After he took me to my hostel I realized that I only had a 5 and I owed him three dollars. So I gave him the 5 dollars and waited for my change. Then he told me, that’s it you don’t get any change back. Ok, Ok, hold up what? You told me 3 dollars… Well it was further than you said it was.. What are you talking about, it was a block away from the corner I specified…Well I have to charge you for my extra time…You charging me almost double for the extra 2 minutes… That when I blew up. I don’t want to say the things I told this man in this blog because it was not very Peace Corpsish of me. I guess sometimes you reach a point where you can’t be calm anymore, that was my point. Now that I look back at it, it is kind of messed up that I blew up on that man like that over 2 dollars. Needless to say, first thing in the morning I Ieft panama city as soon as possible.
The next day when I returned back to my province I spent the day helping another volunteer find things for her house. She took forever to decide, so I was literally with her all day walking around the city. I decided to give the meetings at the school another try, I arrived there around 9 in the morning to participate in the meetings. For some reason that day I understood things a lot better. That day I decided to join 3 school committees. One of them is the sports committee, during announcements for who will be participating in each committee, the director of the sports committee decided to publicly name me the referee for the soccer games and some other sport I never heard of. Wow..I never played soccer a day in my life and I have no idea what the rules are. I then asked a professor that speaks English if I understood correctly that she just volunteered me to be a referee. He said..Hey man don’t worry about it, its easy…then he pointed to the door and said I need to talk to you. We walked outside then he said
..Man you have to be careful..Careful, what are you talking about?...You can’t be hanging around those horny girls…Horny girls? I still don’t know what you’re talking about?..Those girls that have sex for money, I heard you where walking around yesterday with that hooker…Man I was with a volunteer all day yesterday..Does she speak English?..Yes she was born in the states.. Really? She looks just like that hooker that ask everyone to take advantage of her services...Yes really she is a volunteer and I know the lady that you’re talking about because she asked me a few weeks ago, but that’s not her. Who told you that?..Im sorry man don’t tell him I told you but he is over there..
So with in 1 week of starting school I have already been the tagged as the gringo the hangs around with hookers. I don’t know how far the rumor has spread but, I needed to cut it off as soon as possible. I walked over to the teacher where the story originated and said to him.
Hey, man I saw you yesterday but you didn’t wave at me….Yea I saw you I was driving..Well it’s ok, I was real busy. I had to show another volunteer where she could find things that she needed for her house…A volunteer?..Yea a volunteer, she lives in Bocas..She’s one of you? Yep..Oh I made a mistake…What do you mean? I thought that she was one of those horny girls..No, If I was to get caught with a hooker, I would get kicked out..Oh, I was worried that you were going to get AIDS, those girls are dangerous.
This is already going to be an interesting school year.
