Raining season is back?

Since I left Panama in mid December it wasn't raining here. Not even a one rain drop. On one side it means, that the temperature is a little bit higher (around 35 degrees, but at Seminario Introductorio we got 41), which is not very pleasant for me, on the other hand I don't want to complain, because I know, what is expecting me, when the raining season will start again. The temperatures will be around 30 degrees, but the humidity will be reaching almost 100%, and when it starts raining, the air is so heavy, that it is hard to breathe and you can see the drops of sweat appearing at your body... Therefore I am OK with the weather right now and trying to ignore the high temperatures...
The question is, for how long, because yesterday it rained. Actually it wasn't rain, it was monsoon. After the rain I realized, how good weather was the whole January and February. People told me, that the raining season should start at the end of April, so I really hope they are right.

Seminario Introductorio

The second introductory seminar in Panama since I came to Central America. The first one was at the end of September and hopefully this LC will not need another member recruitment until next march and they will retain the newies they just recruited.

Again it was the 2-day conference at the same place as last time, so we already knew the site. But it was very nice surprise for me to see the site during the dry season - it looks much nicer, when there is no rain.

Out of 20 invited newies only 14 came and we had to wait ("surprisingly") for some of them, so we started late ("surprisingly"), but within few sessions we got back on track. As Martin came from Costa Rica, there were 4 MC members at the conference - almost as many as at regional conferences... There is still chance, that at last conference in CAS (end of May - 10 days before the term ends) we will meet as whole team at one place... The EB members were good facilitators (for many of them it was first facilitating experience) and with support of the MC the sessions went quite well. During the day we got into small delay, but don't remember many conferences, where this didn't happen, so we were ready for that and adjusted the sessions based on the current reality.

Two interesting moments of the conference were definitely the football match during the lunch break:

and the evening culture shock game - Albatross:

And of course - the party...
As the parties are important part of each conference and there are several drinking games, which all of us know very well, we decided to keep the tradition and teach some drinking games also to newies. And it was quite successful, although it was not a typical drinking game from AIESEC conferences. Based on the pictures I am quite sure, that you will recognize, which game we played...

All people enjoyed the game, they just have problems saying "Machacek" and so there were many other names for this game such as "Hashish"...

Finally some rest

Since my arrival to Costa Rica at the beginning of January the life was totally crazy and disorganized:

• I spent few days at the MC office in Costa Rica
• We had a COCAS conference for 4 days
• Zdenka came to Costa Rica and during the weekend we went to Palmares (music festival in Costa Rica)
• I spent one week working in Costa Rica
• Two weeks of vacations - traveling with Premek and Zdenka
• one week of work in Panama
• Carnivals

Finally on 26.2. (after 6 weeks in Central America) I will have "normal" working week at the office. And it should stay like this until end of April. Then I will leave Panama (for the last time during this one year trip to Central America), and move to Costa Rica. In may I will be working in the MC office in Costa Rica and from 1.6. I am an AIESEC alumnus. Last 11 days in Central America (planning to visit Nicaragua) and on 12.6. in the morning I am flying home and the adventure will be over... I have a feeling, that I came yesterday, but it is already 8 months...

Carnavales

At the same time, when in Rio de Janeiro everyone is dancing samba, there are carnivals also in Panama (and I assume also in other countries). I have never been to Brazilian carnival so I cannot compare it to the Panamanian one, so at least I will describe my experiences from the few days before, during and after the event.

If I understood it well, the "Carnavales" have the Cristian tradition, as they finish one day before the Ash Wednesday (=40 days before Easter when in Cristian countries the Lent starts). However during that days I didn't find many connections with Christianity or its values and traditions. But let's start from the beginning:

When we were planning the recruitment sometime back in November, I was told that it is impossible to do it during the February, because there are Carnavales. To my question "How long are Carnavales" I got the answer, that it is 4 days. So I repeated my proposal of doing the recruitment in February, but got the answer, that we cannot do it, because in February are Carnavales... Somehow I was not able to understand, where are the other 24 days of February being lost. When I came back from my trip with Zdenka and Premek (it was 5 days before carnivals), I understood, why they were afraid of organizing something in February - the Carnavales are only 4 days, but one week before them everyone is getting ready for carnivals, and one week after them everyone is recovering from carnivals. The week after my vacations (=the week before Carnavales) I was not able to reach any company, there was half of the people in university and generally everyone was already thinking about next week and was preparing for it.

Population of Panama is something less then 3 million and half of the population lives in Panama city. And majority of people from Panama city leave the capital for Carnavales and is going to the countryside, which every year creates the big traffic jams. We were also leaving to a small city somewhere in the central part of Panama - Las Tablas. We were supposed to leave at 6, but because of some unexpected (well - I was kind of expecting it) circumstances we left at 8. The traffic wasn't as bad as I thought, but anyway it took us around 4 hours to get to the place.

When we finally arrived to Eric's house around 0:30 am, I thought, that we are going to sleep and next morning the carnivals will start. I was wrong - we just left the luggage in the house and left to P.H. - Pub Herrerano (Herrerano is the brand of Seco - typical Panamanian drink). The entrance was 30$ for 4 days (better said nights) and the whole idea of P.H is to get as many people to one place as possible, play reggaeton whole night and from time to time splash water on the people. However because of some unknown reason all people like it (otherwise they would not pay 30 bucks...). After 4 hours of the same rhythm, same music we decided to leave and went to sleep.

In the morning (= 11 am) we slowly woke up, and left to the city center for the "Culecos". Basically the idea is the same as in P.H., here is just changed the priority of music / water. Everyday there were several water tanks ready to splash water on people for several hours. From the moment we reached the center it was almost impossible to move, there were so many people. And there was too much water everywhere - people standing on tanks were directing the water-hoses in all directions so everyone got his portion of water. We found some place, where we could at least a move a little bit, opened the beer cans and started to drink and enjoying the warm weather. After a few minutes I realized, that the water is necessary, because it is so hot, that it is impossible just to stand there and drink...

After few hours of drinking, getting wet and just chilling (see the post from August) we got back to the house, had a lunch and afternoon siesta (everyone fell asleep) and in the evening (around 10) we went again to P.H. I will not describe next three days, because it would be just copy-pasting. In other words carnivals are 4 days of drinking, being splashed by water, having fun and enjoying life with friends - definitely a good experience.

Travel vacations

Right after the COCAS Zdenka came to Costa Rica to spend 1 month in Central America with me and Premek. As soon as there will be some page created about our trip, I will let you know. Now I will just mention the highlights of the trip through Costa Rica and Panama:

• When Zdenka was leaving from Czech Republic, she asked us, what kind of beer we want her to bring. As Premek was indifferent, I said Gambrinus and was looking forward to have a Czech beer in Central America. But when Zdenka took out of her bag 4 six-packs of Gambrinus, both me and Premek were not able to speak of amazement, as we were expecting something like 1 - 2 cans per head.
• The second day of our trip through Costa Rica (Premek and Zdenka spent week in Nicaragua before that) we came to small town and found a hostel, where in that time, there were just two rooms occupied. Few minutes after we got to the room, someone knocked on the door, and when Premek opened it, we just heard: "Dobry vecer." (=Good evening in Czech). In the middle of nowhere, to the hostel, where there was almost no one, came another Czech person - girl from Prague, who was traveling in Costa Rica as well.
• Next day we wanted to visit Vulcan Arenal, but as it was in clouds, we stuck to the plan B (which was of course created at spot) and went to the thermal spa, where we enjoyed 35 to 45 degrees in water. That time the air temperature was only around 30 degrees...
• Visit of Vulcan Irazu - so far the highest point I reached - 3432 meter above the sea level. The only dark mark on this nice altitude is, that to approximately 3000 meters we were taken by bus and climbed only thee last few meters to the top of the Vulcan.
• Visit in Coffee factory, where we were introduced to the the process from the plant until the coffee cup.