Sector Conference

I am on my way back to my community after spending a few nights in El Valle for our CEC sector conference. It was fantastic. The hotel we stayed in was beautiful and quaint and the owner and staff were wonderful and super nice to us. The conference was good, the first day definitely better than the second. And the third day we got to go to the zoo to see the facility where there´s a small group of people working to save the endangered Golden Frog, along with other frogs and reptiles being killed by some super dangerous, world-wide fungus I can´t remember the name of (kitcher?). The best part of the conference was getting to meet all the older volunteers in the CEC group and just talk with them about projects and sites and stresses and emotions and get lots of good ideas and advice. Very informative. SAS had their sector conference at the same time at another hotel down the street, so on the second night we had the ¨Campo Olympics¨ - CEC vs. SAS. Events included something similar to a wall sit, only with no wall and in the same position one would need to be in to be squatting over a latrine. See who could last the longest. Then an eating competition. Then a who-can-put-up-a-mosquito net-the-quickest competition. Unfortunetely, SAS swept the board. :( But there will be a rematch and CEC will prove their capabilities. Possibly at Thanksgiving. :) Then yesterday (Friday) was Allie´s birthday so a few of us came to Panamá City for a night to celebrate before returning to our sites. It was my first time back in the city since I was sworn in about 6 weeks ago. We had a good time. Ate at Bennigan´s, so nice to have real pasta! Then went to a casino where Cassie put $1 into a penny slot machine and over the next couple of hours proceeded to cash out with $50. We were quite impressed. But then we´re not really real gamblers and get very excited over the smallest win. And we´re Peace Corps volunteers, so $50 is 5 days of work! So that´s pretty darn good. :) All in all I am returning from a very good, very informative, very fun, very refreshing, very beautiful week. Yay for conferences and getting to see good friends. :) Oh, and I´ll try to put up the pictures in the next week on Facebook at which time I´ll post the link on here, so look for that. I know everyone wants to see pictures of the latrine squat. :-p