Martes!

We woke up bright and early at 7am on Tuesday, ready for the long day ahead of us. We started the morning off with french toast, fruit, and "Special Fit", our new favorite cereal, which bears a striking resemblence to Special K but also includes yogurt chips and chocolate.. Panamanians sure have the right idea! Upon our arrival at the worksite--just a few blocks from Magnolia, the hostel--we got right to work moving chunks of cleared floor, cleaning up the area, breaking concrete, and moving 2,000 bags (more or less.. maybe less) of sand and rocks up and down the stairs at the project site in preparation for further construction. At noon, we came back to the hostel to quickly ready ourselves for lunch with the Panama Rotary Club. We met the members of Rotario Panama del Sur at Club Union, a members' club in a swanky area of the city next to the new Trump Tower. We had a lovely time intermingling with the members of the club, and we found a wonderful surprise in a group of Panamanian Rotaracters who had also been invited to this week's meeting. It was great speaking to the members of both groups and finding out more about Rotary in Panama and the country in general-- everyone was extraordinarily welcoming and friendly. We sped back to Casco Viejo to finish up a bit of work at the project before getting started on perhaps our most ambitious endeavor of the day: dinner. We decided to utilize the hostel kitchen for our evening meal, so six of us adventured off to Calle 13a and Avenida A towards the typical Panamanian grocery store recommended to us by one of Magnolia's owners. The store was enormous, with five stories containing everything from hair gel to sporting equipment to fresh smoothies! We purchased dinner ingredients and snacks for the worksite; on our way back to the hostel, we bought fruits and vegetables from the street vendors along the way. Once safely back at Magnolia, we divvied up tasks and began to create our epic meal: starting with chips and salsa, we moved on to fresh bread and bruschetta, a garden salad, and pasta with homemade tomato sauce and chicken. We also had a cake with chocolate icing, accompanied by assorted ice creams from the corner bodega. Just like home (kind of)! After cleaning up a bit from our meal and trying to postpone our food comas, we began a private salsa lesson in the ballroom upstairs. Despite some of our initial struggles, we all mastered some of the steps and were twirling away by night's end; it was definitely a great way to get a grasp of just another facet of Latin American culture. After spending some more time relaxing and bonding with the group, we tucked in to rest up for another long and hot day in Casco!

besos y abrazos,
Hannah "HGM" Goldberg-Morse