August 14, 2011

Wayne decided we needed a bank account at a second bank. So, for weeks he has been gathering documents and papers, copies of everything imaginable, signatures, papers, etc. He has gone to the back in April and gotten tons of forms that needed to be filled out. So, yesterday was the big day. He was expecting to go to the bank and take hours to probably accomplish nothing. And it happened. Nothing was accomplished. The papers he picked up in April have been changed. He has a whole stack of new papers now that have to be filled out and signed. Plus more documents he never heard about before. However, once they accept your papers doesn’t mean you get an account right away. It could be still weeks before it can be approved. There are so many banks in this country. Seems like there might be some competition?? And as I mentioned before, you walk out with a terrific headache, but no toaster or any free gift like you do in the states.
Yesterday was the “fun” day of our month of in-service. A bus hauled all of us teachers to a beach for the day. How fun was that! After a zillion years of teaching in the Midwest, we never went to a beach for inservice. What a terrific group of teachers! This is really an international school. So many countries were represented. Probably the only common characteristic is that the language of the school is English and everyone could speak English. Just about almost everyone knew a 2nd, 3rd, or more language. On the way there, we stopped at a roadside stand and most got a chicheme, a corn-based beverage mixed with water, sugar, and cinnamon. Panamanians tout the drink for its nutritional properties. Sounds terrible, tastes great. Like a milkshake made with corn and not fruit.

Funny story though. Our director (headmaster) is really trying to overcome the Latin America “being late is a perfectly ok” attitude. He stressed so much yesterday the bus was leaving promptly at 8:00 am and they were waiting not a second more for anyone. So it worked with the teachers. Everyone was there before 8:00. BUT (again it is the culture), the bus didn’t arrive until sometime later.
I have my first iPad workshop this week to help the teachers begin to think of how a one computer device per student program can work. I am in hog heaven doing those things. We actually get to teach the kids in their world, not ours. Love learning all these new technologies and how it changes education.