From a Pickle's Point of View

FINALLY! A post about how PCVs live and what their lives look like, with pictures!! So far I have visited two different PCV sites, and they were indeed very different. The first one was very easy access and only about 2 hours outside of Panama City. This site we went to as a group and only spent one day there, so I do not have that many photos, but I will go ahead and post a few that I have.

                  Making some hats

                    Group picture

                    Beautiful views

The second site is the one I just returned from. I spent 4 days there and it was much further away, about 6 hours in a bus to another 30 minutes in the back of a truck up a mountain to a 30 minute hike to get to his house. This site was in the mountains and had a view of the Pacific Ocean from his house, which was pretty awesome. We had plenty of down time to sit in hammocks and read, as well as take some hikes around the community to meet people and see other beautiful vistas. Two highlights of the trip: I saw a toucan (although not quick enough to get a picture of it) and we had a pretty cool shower. Here are some pictures of this site:

                 A PCV's house

                      Another view

             Again, out in the campo

              Growing corn and rice

                         The latrine

                    The shower

One of the main differences between the two sites I visited was how far along in the process they were. The first site was closing their service, so their aqueduct was complete and we could see the full project. The second site was a little under a year into service so a lot of the work was still in information retrieval to try and get an idea of how the project would pan out. I have some other good differences as well, but I need to leave this post fairly short so that I can get it posted with the pictures over our admittedly slower internet. Just shoot me an email or Facebook message if you ever wish to know more!