Beach Cleanup

The ocean is a very special place to me. It has always been a part of my life, so much so that I used to joke around saying that I would really have to love somebody to move to a landlocked state (little did I know I would live up to those words some day ;) )  Sunday we were able to participate in Panama's National Beach Cleanup Day. 

Oceans and beaches offer more than picturesque pictures during sunrises and sunsets; they are an important food source for many people, and the ocean plays a big part in the quality of life on Earth.  Did you know that studies are showing that as many as 93% some bird species have ingested plastic? 

Don't live near an ocean? Run off of chemicals and liter run into gutters, those gutters lead to a river/stream or lake. That source eventually hits the ocean, affecting us all.

We went with a group of people which made it fun. It was great to see people of all ages picking up trash along the beach. 

It was amazing how much trash was being collected. Robert and I both found landscaping fabric and pieces of discarded chain linked fences. We also found a lot of plastic and styrofoam, which was no surprise. We were able to fill over two buggies with trash bags and that was just with a small group of us. An article about the clean up stated that over 57 bags of trash were removed from this particular beach...wow!

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What can you do to help keep our environment clean?

• Use reusable shopping bags
• When you are outdoors take what you bring and only leave footprints
• Recycle. Plastic is the number one pollutant and we saw a lot of it today!
• Pick up trash when you see it

The day as a whole was good. After about an hour the heat started to radiate off the black sand and it was time to call it quits. Robert and I went home to five puppies (one was given away) and enjoyed nice tall glasses of water. I am not sure what I did to deserve such a good life, but man is it!

Puppy Tails and Mosquito Bites

Good news! There have been no new snakes found inside or around the house! Bad news: much like last week, nothing really exciting happened this week. We still have the puppies, and now a ton of mosquito bites.

I think we are both eager to start decreasing the pet population once we start finding homes for them. However, we aren't quite ready to sit outside a grocery store to give them away since they still have a few minor health problems. In the mean time we are enjoying them. We've since named all of them (it was easier than referring to them by varying characteristics) and have made makeshift toys so they will chew on those rather than on our feet.

Although they love going after my skirt

While for the most part the puppies have learned to chew on other things besides us, the mosquitos are a different story. Wearing shorts is hard right now since I have counted over 60 mosquito bites on one leg; that is not including arms, the bottom of my feet (make that four), my torso, or my face. In essence, I look diseased. I am trying hard not to scratch. I highly advise anyone to invest in anti-itch cream since we seem to bathe in it-although those seem to have limited abilities also. 

As a result I have postponed shaving my legs. Luckily the worst parts of my legs are healing so I can shave in a few days. My leg hairs seem to be sticking to everything like velcro and it's time for that to stop. I know what you may be thinking, why don't you just use Off or Avon's Skin So Soft or....? The short and simple answer is that it isn't practical and Off, in my opinion, smells better than Skin So Soft, in other words, both smell awful. 

At any rate, these guys are pretty cute and they are some of the smartest dogs I have met. They pretty much know what they can get away with and what they shouldn't be doing. Case in point, they shouldn't go out of the fence. While most of them play with temptation, one got the idea to only go half way through.

I am not sure how much longer we'll keep them until we try to find a shelter. Until then, we'll continue to enjoy the six additional cuties in our lives. 

Snakes in a Shower: Our Morning Adventure

The morning started off in perfect fashion: the puppies started crying to eat and play at 4:30am. Robert was kind enough to let me sleep in while he fed the puppies and took them outside. The puppies must have had a lot of energy today since by the time I woke up at 6:00 Robert was just getting inside; he looked exhausted. I tried to take over puppy duty as I got ready to go to yoga, while Robert went back to sleep. As I was getting ready I was trying to think about what to write for the blog.

Maybe I won't post anything. After all, telling people we had roasted broccoli with dinner last night is not very interesting....

Robert was trying to sleep as I took a shower. Showers are one of the best places for me to think and clear my mind. What to do about the blog...what to do about the blog....and then it happened.

I was rinsing my hair with conditioner, almost finished with my shower. I looked down, saw a black something and tried to get a stream of water to make it move down the drain not giving it a lot of thought. I was unsure what it was exactly, maybe a bug or string; I figured the stream of water would cause it to float down the drain and did not think much of it. It moved so I attempted a second stream. Man this thing is stubborn. 

I finally looked at what I was trying to wash down and immediately screamed for a sleeping Robert.

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We didn't have a string or a little bug in our shower. We had a baby snake in our shower. Before getting to the bathroom Robert asked whether or not it was a caterpillar since he recently saw a black caterpillar in our other bathroom. Robert saw it and went for his shoe. I have no idea why I let him kill roaches, spiders and other creepy crawlies, but for some reason I could not let Robert smash the snake.

Robert discovered it was a Ringneck Snake which isn't "technically" poisonous, according to Wikipedia whatever that means. 

I watched the snake while he grabbed tupperware bowl and a piece of paper. Robert needed something a little stronger to keep the snake in the tupperware before flipping over. I found a cardboard photo envelope. It worked! I offered him a pillow case to try to make it easier to try to prevent the snake from wiggling out...after all, Steve Irwin used to use them when wrangling snakes. Not my best idea.

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Robert declined the pillow sheet but asked me to open the door and unlock the gate. I opened the door and unlocked the gate for Robert. He was generous enough to put the snake in a field across the street as per my suggestion. Robert turned to me, took a deep breath, smiled and told me he loved me. I know you do Robert...

Becoming Foster Parents to Puppies

This week has been a daze. Thursday as I was getting up I thought I heard an animal crying. It turns out the cry I was hearing was not one cry, but the cry of 6 abandoned puppies behind our house. The puppies were left in a box with a carton of milk. This week I ask you please excuse any incoherent parts of this post as my sleep is limited and my short term memory is almost non existent.

The big question is what do we do with them? We can't keep them all. There really aren't any shelters in Panama and the veterinarian informed me that the dogs were not very healthy so they need to have somebody to look after them.

The puppies pre-vetrerinarian visit

Right now we are agreeing to nurse them back to health for two weeks before adopting them out. The plan is to get the word out about the dogs via word of mouth and the internet.

The veterinarian said she believes the pups are between 6-8 weeks old. They seem very smart since they have only messed their sleeping bin twice (one time was our fault) and will cry when they need go out. They are all smart curious little guys-actually only one is male, the others are all females. Aren't they adorable?

We haven't really named any of them and neither of us seemed to be too attached to any particular dog. They all have their own personalities which make them each quirky and cute. Although they are puppies, the fact that they are still babies is always present; one might cry if another dog take's a leaf from it and they all love sucking on one of our fingers or a sibling's foot when they fall asleep. I am not denying the potential to become attached to one or two of them by the time adoptions start occurring.

Our dogs seem to be a bit agitated, as much as I hate to admit it. Our little dog loves to be the center of attention while our bigger dog is more independent but can still be pretty loving at night-even if she is not like that all the time. We still try to make sure they get attention too and that they get a good daily walk. I am sure they are counting down the weeks until normalcy returns.

I honestly don't want the neighborhood to know we have picked up stray puppies since I do not want to make this a routine thing.  People have commented that the puppies are lucky to have us. While I am awful with accepting the compliment, to us taking the dogs in wasn't an option. We also feel that they are doing us a favor as much as we are them. I hope this will be the last litter we see in a while. In the mean time Robert and I will walk around like zombies (did I mention my short term memory is shot?) and enjoy the fact that we are doing something good for these little guys.

Hymonyms in the English Language

Volunteering and teaching English continues to expand my perspective on everything: me, my family, my future, the world. There are two other people that regularly teach class with me: Robert, and another expat from the United States, which all try our hand at teaching despite none of us being teachers prior to moving to Panama. We try to create lessons based off of things that may be relevant for a job, things that interest them, or common questions that come up.

This week was all about Hymonyms since students were frequently asking about them. What is a homonym? It is a word that sounds the same as another but means something different. Start thinking about it and there is a whole list that comes up. A website, always grow personally had a picture about this online which depicted the English language to a tee:

Obviously there are a lot of homonyms that we use regularly. In fact, one website identified 706 sets of these! While we only discussed about 30 of them, it was hilarious for even the native English speakers to try to break down the words slowly. Although I think for the most part we succeeded. While I feel like I automatically know the difference and can hear the difference between these sets of homonyms, it isn't always easy to say the word slowly so somebody can learn the word.

Our class seems to be developing a cohesive bond where everyone seems to be a bit more engaged and a little less embarrassed to make a mistake. After all, everyone does at some point in the class and we all learn. It was amazing to see that everyone seemed to be learning, trying to test each other with the correct usage and pronunciation of the homonyms they just learned.

I do not think I would ever want to be a teacher as a profession. It is hard work on many levels, and having an open class adds to this difficulty. Despite the unlikelyhood that I will ever get a teaching degree, I get what can drive and motivate teachers. It was a rush to hear some of the students read sentences with the homonyms and see them leaving class with smiles. Days like that are when I feel I get more out of it than the students who come to learn.

Incorporating Yoga with Climbing a Fence

Yoga has become my latest form of exercise.  It is great for so many different things, including flexibility, strength, and mental health. For a list of health benefits to yoga, you can read this article.

Yoga is not about having to be super flexible. If that was the case many beginners and intermediate people I know would not be doing yoga. Frankly, yoga is for everyone (including you if you're curious)

These poses are not what I am doing in yoga:

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Someday...

For now I am doing poses more like:

Trying to touch my toes with straight legs
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The whole idea of yoga is to breath and invite your body to go a little bit further without force. One of the (many) benefits of yoga is that you put yourself in uncomfortable positions and work through them. Sound familiar?

Last week my yoga instructor encouraged the class to become mindful of how we think when we get stressed in a yoga pose. What do we tell ourselves when we feel stressed or put in a yoga position that is difficult for us? Sounds a bit like life?

Her words came to reality for me especially last week. I wanted to walk the dogs before I left for work. As I got the dogs out of the house I locked the door and only noticed I grabbed the car keys as I was trying to unlock the gate. 

I was stuck! My phone was inside and could not call anyone. Waiting for Robert to get back from work was not an option since I had to leave for work within an hour of walking the dogs. My only option was jumping a fence for the first time and hoping my landlord was home. Did I mention I was also wearing a maxi skirt?

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After trying my shot at mind control hoping the doors/and or the gate would unlock; no luck. After a few attempts of telling myself I can't do this I did. My next challenge? Hoping that my landlord was home so I could get the keys from him. He was and I was able to put the dogs in the house just in time to leave for work.

With my yoga spirit in mind I learned a lot from climbing the fence. It is something I do not plan on making a regular habit, but it was a great feeling to overcome my doubt. Now if only I could work on touching my toes!

A Week of Visitors

This past week we had our first visitors to Panama! My parents visited for 10 days. Outside of visiting Mexico, this was their first international trip. It was also a chance for my dad, who is bilingual, to brush up on his Spanish skills.

My parents had a few requests of things they wanted to see and do in Panama. With some patience on their behalf I think we were able to see everything they wanted without being too overwhelmed. Within 10 days they were able to....

See Robert and I surf and also feel what 80 degree ocean water feels like

Go to El Valle and the Butterfly Haven there

Visit Ancon Hill and see some of its views

Go to the Panama Canal and see a ship transit through part of the locks

Visit a cathedral 

Swim in a pool and relax

...they also got to experience the crazy driving, how inexpensive certain aspects of Panama can be, and try some different foods. They avoided the crazy Panama rain and missed some of the crazy music and fireworks that typically occur during the weekends. I'm sure they are okay with that! 

The time that they were here went by amazingly fast. My dad's Spanish skills seemed a bit rusty but for the most part, it seemed to come back to him. He did have to learn about cultural differences in words (some which made us all laugh). It was a special treat to be able to share something we love with my parents. Next time they come back I am sure Robert and I will have more adventures to take them on as well, which will be another special treat!