Mi primer dia en el CAMPO!!

So if you are wondering how my Saturday went, YOU WON'T BELIEVE!
By 6:30 We were driving over to Chorrera (about 1 hour from where we are staying right now). 10 of us squished into a little white van. First cool thing on the trip was crossing over the "Puente Centenario".
I was tired but i didn't want to fall asleep cause I just wanted to see everything there was to see. As we got further and further from the city, the mountains and the countryside became more beautiful and filled with cows and horses and goats. So much so that we actually had a road block of cows!!By 8 we had arrived at Stephanie's Site. A little boy greated us at the front. When I got out of the car, all my senses were attacked. It smelled SOO different. It smelled GREAT! It smelled like NATURE....it smelled like sancocho!
We walked around the whole farm through little trails, over creeks on these little bridges that weren't really doing much. I got to eat mandarina, naraja, tamarindo, mamey. (all of which i cut with my cool multitool!) I cut my finger a little by the way...ooopps =)I got to play with chickens, goats, and most especially I GOT TO RIDE A HORSE!!At Lunch we ate sancocho! with freshly squeezed orange juice...i cant explain how good it was. I took a little nap under a tree for about 20minutes. BEST nap ever. After that great power nap. It was time to get DIRTY.
We took our shoes off and got into a pool of mudd.

1. we stomped all over for 10 minutes
2. then we got out and pulled out some rice seedlings from the rice bed in the parcel to the right of the mudd pit
3. then we came back to the mudd put and spread the organic fertilizer (made at the farm) out around the mudd.
4. then we lined up a string from one end to the other and started planting the rice seedlings that we had pulled out of the other bed.
5. 
   In the Picture above, you can't really see it but I CAUGHT my first FISH!! I was so happy. Rice in my right and fish in my left!!
   

It was a slow tedious process but I had a great time.Surprisingly, i didn't get that dirty =)
We washed up at the creek and walked back to Stephanie's house (1 mile). We we got there we got Pina juice...it was delicious!! and it was COLD! We did a little activity with groups and we headed home.

BUT...
on the way home we stopped at a shop and GOT: A MACHETE and BOOTS!!!Now i'm the real deal. I even have a sharpener for my machete!
(boots are in the the red BAG...and I had gatorade...it was delicious!)

Tomorrow we leave to Santa Clara (a little town) where we will be training for the next 10 weeks. I will be moving in with a HOST family. From what i have heard, these families will not have phones and I don't know how far I will have to travel for internet either. =(
As soon as i can i will put up my next post. At Santa Clara we will be getting Language training and technical training. I am excited to see what we will be doing and learning. Today after dinner i had to take a Malaria Pill (which I am going to have to take once a week for the remainder of my trip here in Panama). Im a little scared cause one of the sideffects of these pills is crazy nightmares...I guess we will see how tonight goes.

I miss you all and hope you are enjoying these little snapshots of my life NOW....

What i find amazing is how these people don't care to leave more than 20miles from their house. They grow their own food, live with the people they love, and know how to love their life. Why do we, who apparently have it all, find ourselves always looking for something more, something else to make us happy?

MUAHH!!