Panamerican Proceeding

Lend me an ear and you will hear the rants and raves of this volunteer. "Nothing is stronger than the heart of a volunteer" says Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle (parden the pun), but perhaps no one is crazier either. Why do we care so much? Herein lies a glimpse of my Pan-American experience.

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Location: Bocas Del Toro, Panama Este, Panama

The proceeding 'Panamerican' is a Master's International Student and Peace Corps Volunteer. Disclaimer: Contents are the author's viewpoints only, (need to stress only), and many may have been written on particularly poor days.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The DR in 15 pics

My buddy Glenn´s house in the north close to the city of Altamira. Showing off his nice motorcycle helmet. Gotta love PC rules - perfectly fine to ride a motorcycle as long as you have a 20 year-old dilapidated helmet they provide.

Glenn with two members of his community.
The view from Glenn´s site. If you look really close you can see the stadium that 2005 Cy Young Winner Bartolo Colón built for the area. He grew up here and played on Glenn´s community field where he learned the game. The Caribbean is just beyond the last mountain range, you can see it from higher up.
The beach at Puerto Plata.
I left the beach and headed to Ryan´s site in the south near El Cercado and the Haitian border. This is Ryan´s house made from palm wood.

Hiking in to Ryan´s site the rivers were still high from Tropical Storm Noel. After crossing I noticed my toenail was ripped loose so I had to remove it which kind of limited my mobility for a few days.

The view from Ryan´s house.
Ryan with community members.
A community meeting (of sorts). This public school was started by the government several years ago and has never been finished.

Val flew in and we enjoyed a day of sightseeing in Santo Domingo, especially the La Colonia district which was the first settlement in this hemisphere.

A statue of Christopher Columbus outside the oldest church.

And his brother Diego´s estate, now a museum.
Baseball is so huge in the DR, a lot of the Majors best players are from there. We enjoyed a game between rivals Santiago and Santo Domingo with fellow PCVs.

Val and I killed a few days at the beach at Juan Dolio.

And the whole party finally reunited for the last day. Here is the MTU crew, Glenn, Val, Ryan and I.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

New Contact Info

Hey everybody, since I moved I have a new cell phone and mailing address. I also updated the "My Contact Info" link on the left for future reference as well. Thanks.

Cell phone: (507) 6505-9608

Mailing Address:
Cuerpo de Paz – Panamá
Atención: (my name)
Edificio 95, 1 Piso
Avenida Vicente Bonilla
Ciudad del Saber, Clayton
Panamá, Republica de Panamá