The ants go marching thousands by thousands in Panama!

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Have you ever looked at a line of ants working on something and wondered what their interactions are like? Like does ant #1992384 in the line think that ant #1948385 is super attractive and maybe he wants to ask her over to his anthill to watch a movie? Or maybe ant #13841274 sweats a lot when he works (like an American in Panama) and gets made fun of because the rest of the ants don’t sweat at all (like most Panamanians). Or maybe on is cross-eyed and has a difficult time figuring out how to obtain the leave that is obviously in front of him. Can you imagine if ants had social nets works like humans? Jessica, the ant has a clique with all her ant friends, they are the cool group. It is hard to associate with them because they are so exclusive. I am assuming they don’t because they accomplish and they all work together. And when you kill one, they all freak out.
I promise, I am not losing my mind or anything like that, I just have more time to focus on things like ants now. Or maybe it is just because there are so many freakin’ insects here!
*Definitely saw the biggest cockroach in the history of humanity on my floor last night. Awesome. It was like the size of a small dog, ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!! So I popped a sleep meds and passed out. Yep, sometimes it is better to not address the reality in front of your face!

I can’t believe it August already! My time is starting to pick up speed already, which frightens me a bit. There is plenty of work to be done and I have already started most of it. After talking to some of my friends in other communities, it appears that my ‘over-achiever’ mode has been turned on. It is nice to feel semi- busy, whatever that means here. Things are so relaxed it is hard to feel as though you are getting things done if compared to the way things run in the USA. I realize that I cannot compare my previous jobs to this…at all. The rate of progress here is relative and has to be put into perspective. I am teaching quite a bit and working in the school in small stints. Overall I really am starting to fit in here well. It is not so much a feeling of people laughing at me, more with me as I am trying to practice Spanish the way they speak it here. My meals consist of rice and pasta, together and some meat…all of which I eat with a spoon. Now you might be puzzled by this, trust me I was as well initially but it is quite simple – you shovel mass amounts of food in your mouth at once. Trust me it is not pretty and it leads to me eating much more than intended. Go figure, me eating too much at once. (Amanda get that smirk off your face, I try to breath between bites).
I am going to the director of the school’s house for her birthday this weekend. I am excited to get out and meet some new people. She is really great and I have enjoyed getting to know her. It is nice to have someone relatively in my age range to spend time with that is motivated and interested in similar things.
It has been raining a lot at night so they turn the electricity off without warning. So my host brother and I have dance parties in the dark with flashlights. I will leave you with that mental image for now! Until next time…

***the pictures above are of my 2 year old friends that wake me up every morning waiting to play. haha. They are hilarious. One is very tough, the other is a pansy...I am pretty sure you can figure out who is who. And the other picture is of the space where I teach English classes to my Tourism Group.