So, when we got back from the beach that day, we finished one workshop and then taught another full workshop the next day then traveled to a town called Chitré.

Visiting David and the interior made me realize how much I love living by the mountains and being in the country.  Panama has been my first experience of a large city, and it has its fun parts, but I’m finding that in the end, I love open spaces and beautiful views.  The interior of Panama didn’t disappoint.  Up in the mountains it was much cooler than along the coast in the city.  It still rains just about as much as in the city (which at this time is usually every other day, for a little bit at least, if not every day), but it’s not quite as humid (I didn’t feel like I was breathing water, like I do in the city sometimes) and it seems like it cleared up faster after raining.  There is also just a completely different feel to the small towns and cities in the interior of the country than the city.  The people are much friendlier and open, willing to help and talk with you for a while.  The pace is also much more relaxed and the areas are safer, especially in the night time, as I found out during out trip to Chitré.

Public transport in Panama is quite impressive to me. During the day, you can always find a frequent bus to take you from one city to the next for reasonable prices.  The buses are usually small 15 passenger vans which somehow manage to seat about 20-22, and they usually have typical Latino music playing softly.  The buses have their main stops, but they also will stop pretty much wherever you ask them to and they will pick someone up from pretty much wherever.  Even the large travel buses like we have in the U.S. that travel longer distances will pick up whoever flags them down and only charge a fee for the distance traveled. Over all, I love traveling by bus through the country here.  It’s relaxing and the country is beautiful.  I wish I had at least one more pair of eyes to be able to see everything on both sides of me.

Anyways, during the day, the transport is great.  However, during the night is a different story all together, mostly just because everything between small cities shuts down after about 8 or 10.  Unfortunately for us, we found this out the hard way.

We boarded a late bus from David to make it to Chitré.  We found out that the bus wouldn’t go directly to Chitré but we would need to catch a bus from a city between called Santiago.  What they neglected to mention at the bus stop of David was that we wouldn’t be able to get a bus from Santiago to Chitré until six in the morning.  Because the bus was late from David, we both fell asleep and were unceremoniously woken up by the assistant (each bus has a main driver and then a man to pack luggage and collect tickets/fares) telling us we needed to get off. We obeyed blindly, still wiping sleep from our eyes at one in the morning, but he actually knew what he was talking about and we got off at the right place.  We then wandered about for a bit aimlessly until we asked and found out that while we had been dropped off at the right stop for the next bus we needed, it wouldn’t come until 6 in the morning.  So, lucky for us, the interior cities of Panama are much safer in the night and we spent the night at the bus station without losing anything, being robbed, or being injured (so don’t worry, Mom, it was a good adventure).  We finally made it to Chitré only to find that 1) the phone number we had been given for the district president of the area was actually wrong because our manager had accidently given us the number for a different “President Duran” that she had on her cell phone and 2) our hotel reservation was not until 2:00 pm that day (a Sunday) so we went to the hotel down the street and booked a room for a few hours to catch up on sleep, shower, and find the correct number.  After figuring everything out, we got the correct number and, well rested and showered, were able to start teaching the workshop in that area.  The rest of the week (this last week) was then spent in teaching one workshop per day in different branches of the district.  In total, we taught five workshops in seven days! It should have been six, but there was some miscommunication in one branch and they were all there, ready and waiting for us one week early... so no one showed up when we actually were there because they didn’t know.  Our schedule this past week has basically been wake up, check out of the hotel, travel by bus to the next town or city arriving around noon or one, check into a hotel, explore the city for about two hours, then go to the church building to teach a workshop until 10:00 pm, try to find someplace that is open to buy dinner, then go to bed.  My only complaint of this schedule was that Latinos enjoy closing their hotel pools at ridiculously early times, so I was never able to enjoy one.  This week was super busy, and I would have loved to be able to spend more time in this region.  I think I’ve found my favorite part of this country.  The members were wonderful! In little time I met some people that I could become good friends with if I had more time to spend with them.  And the country is beautiful.  It strangely reminds me of Scotland in some parts because there are so many green rolling hills.  I hope to be able to visit it more before it is time for me to leave Panama.