There's my house...

... and there's a ROAD!!!  Gravel to come!  :)  And then regular transportation?!?!  I'm not getting my hopes up... too much.

Let There Be Light!

A group of parents from my school and I applied for funds for solar panels for the school through the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas.  Two community members attended a 3 day seminar in September where they learned about the grant application process and had a day of technical training on solar panels.  The funding came through and the company came out last week to install the panels on the school!  The technician (in the black shirt without a hat) was AwEsOmE!  He did a great job of explaining what they were doing throughout the process and gave my counterparts a lot of hands on practice.

We hosted a movie night in the middle of January (powered by a gas generator) to raise awareness for our project and money for our maintenance fund.  My friends Sonia and Drea lent us their projector, disk player, and support for our event.  We sold tickets for 25 cents for adults and 15 cents for kids, snacks were 15 cents, and we profited $56!  I was pretty impressed!  :)  When we advertised the event, we didn't put the names of the movies on the signs, so there were people that showed up, paid the entrance, sat down and asked, "What movie are we watching?"  We ended up showing Rio for the kids and Mission Impossible 4 for the adults.

Classy.

Say What?

Don't mind Adri, he's just diggin' for gold...

Bat Cave!

My friend Sam just came to visit and to cap off her trip we headed to my friend Chelsea's community on the man-made Lake Bayano east of Panama City.  It was rumored to have a cool bat cave tour that I had heard about through the grape vine.  I don't know what alternate universe I was in when I jumped at something like a bat cave tour without any hesitation.  There's a particular cave in Missouri that I got about 15 meters into before chickening out... twice.  

We traveled all day to get to Chelsea's site and when we got there and she said we should put on clothes that we can get wet, that was the moment I realized that I hadn't completely thought this activity all the way through.  My biggest fears include, but are not limited to: 

1. Water where I can't see the bottom

2. The Dark

3. Rodents with or without wings

But, like most things here, I had come this far and I wasn't about to turn back.  And I was sure glad I didn't because after the initial panic attack as I submerged myself in cold, dark water in an enclosed area where winged rodents flew over my head, it was really really awesome!

The entrance to the cave is a small river that leads out into Lake Bayano.  Technically it's a tunnel, not a cave, because there are areas where the ceiling opens up, like a large crack to the surface.

I am sooo brave.  You don't have to be proud of me because I'm proud of me for you!  ;)

BATS!

Drea, Chelsea, and I

Sam and our fearless leader Manuel

Chelsea has gone on the tour over 20 times in her last year in Pueblo Nuevo.  She was quick to say "we'll talk about that after" when someone brought up animals or accidents inside the cave.  At one point inside the cave she said "Look!  A catfish!" and I said, "I don't really want to know that, but thanks."  As promised when we left she told us about the poisonous equis or fer-de-lance snakes and alligators she had seen a couple times... I guess the catfish was kinda cool.