#26 - So long, farewell

28/02/2011

So this was our final day of civilisation before we go off into the unknown.
Apparently as the weeks go by the communities we work with will become more and more remote, but I'm fairly sure we won't have wireless internet access, hot showers or panini machines in any of the places.

It's Andy's birthday so the girls decorated the kitchen and cooked chocolate-chip pancakes for us all which was a good effort - I had three pancakes. He received some serious and some novelty gifts, of which three were pairs of his boxer shorts hidden in different locations including the freezer.

It was a day off so Andy, Jess, Lisette, Bonnie, Christina and I decided to hitch a lift with Ryan to Bouquete, a town around an hour and a half away. It is responsible for 65% of Panama's coffee production so we decided to designate the afternoon to doing a tour of one of the coffee plantations.

We were dropped in the town centre, and it started raining. None of us were prepared for such an eventuality, so Ryan directed us to a second-hand clothes store before driving off.
The store was certainly a second-hand clothes store; however what we didn't realise was that it was American themed. We all walked in in t-shirts, and walked out with a retro polyester sports jacket.
Mine is from an American Football team called the Yellow Jackets (though the jacket itself is red, that's Americans for you) and says 'Coach Angelo' on it. It's so awesome. We did all look pretty stupid walking round in jackets coloured red, purple, green and blue but they were only $10.

After that malarkey, we went to a pizzeria and got there at 11:30 - we were then told it opened at 12. So we walked a little further and found a hotel to get a coffee. The setting was really weird - the restaurant area had a stream running through it with a bridge which was pretty cool.
We then returned to the pizzeria and ordered what turned out to be far from inspiring pizzas - at least they were cheap. Andy and I had a beer with it, definitely our last for the next 5 weeks as drinking alcohol is frowned upon in the indigenous Christian communities.

Bonnie, Andy and I  then made our way to Cafe Ruiz, a massive local producer with a brilliant reputation and which is exported far and wide (the others were put off by the $30 price tag, but it was worth it for a 3-hour tour and we came for a coffee tour so we were damn well going to have one).
The tour was brilliant, partly due to the interesting content and partly due to the charismatic guide Carlos. He spoke perfect English and had a sharp sense of humour which extended to British-style mockery. Over the course of the trip, he repeatedly made digs at Starbucks (for all the sweet additives they put in drinks, fair point) and Nescafe (who buy the poor quality beans and are thus known by coffee producers as 'No-es-cafe' or 'Is not coffee').

We were taken to the fields where they grow the beans, the factory where they water, ferment, dry and store the beans and finally the roasting place. It finished with a tasting session which was absolutely delicious - I then bought a coffee afterwards which was also excellent. Coffee in England is going to be a real comedown from here.

After that finished, we were transported home but Ryan had dropped the 4x4 he took us in at the garage for repairs.
The vehicle he took us home in had 4 spaces for 6 people, so Andy and I went in the flatbed in the back with tarpaulin to cover us. The journey back was uncomfortable, wet, windy and nauseous but we made it.
We then had a lovely meal of Thai chicken and potato, finished with a birthday cake featuring pink icing which was lush.

The evening has been spent finishing packing (though I did most of it yesterday, the very definition of efficiency) and eating and saying our farewells by email and Facebook.
And now it's 11:30pm and we have to leave the house at 5:40am, so I had better leave it here.

I've really enjoyed my time in Volcan and will be glad to return to stability here in five weeks time, and one of the benefits of living at the OM house has been being able to update this blog every night.
However from now on, internet access is likely to be limited to a maximum of once a week so this blog now enters a new phase of consolidation and tranquility.
I will do my upmost to provide a weekly retrospective but this may not even be possible, so I apologise in advance if this turns out to be the case.

So until I next have access to the internet, and who knows when that is, it is a sad farewell.
I am off into the sticks to spread the Gospel and take great comfort from the fact that whatever happens in these few weeks, I will come out the other side a stronger person. If I die during this time, then thanks for reading this final post.

In the words of William Shakespeare, who I'm proud to say was born very close to my birthtown, "parting is such sweet sorrow".

And on that note, we shall temporarily part.

JG

#25 - The Holy Grail

27/02/2011

Would usually have had a slight lie in as church starts at 10:30, but I had to get there at 8:30 along with Christina and Liset to practise with the band.
So we got there - I was absolutely knackered, yawning constantly and the steel strings were really punishing my fingers so it wasn´t the best start to the morning.

The service itself went fairly well - I didn´t make any major mistakes with the guitar, and luckily the keyboard was turned up so loud that it drowned out the horrible scratchy noise that was a result of the horrible strings I had to work with.
Jarett and Andy did a really neat skit during the service called ´God´s Chisel´- look it up on YouTube, it´s really funny and thought-provoking at the same time.

Went to the Panaderia on the way back for a post-lunch ice cream that cost only $0.30 - I was tempted to go for two but resisted.
Talked to Amy on Skype for just over an hour which was really nice - we finally had a time when we were both free, and it will probably be the last time for a fair few weeks as internet will be extremely limited/non-existant while we´re doing the outreach with the indigenous peoples.

Spent the rest of the afternoon playing card games and just relaxing which was a welcome relief after a busy, nonstop few days. Made a second trip to the Panaderia with Jarett which was completely unncecessary but very delicious.
Unfortunately each room and its adjoining bathroom has to be cleaned by its residents so we quickly knocked both of those off before dinner, which was a baguette and Pringles.
As a pudding, I had the cookies I bought from my first visit to the Panaderia.

After dinner, us guys plus Jess watched The Holy Grail - she only lasted about ten minutes before leaving due to boredom. We found it hilarious so it doesn´t matter anyway.

After that, we had a group meeting to assign roles for next week as well as for the entire time - for instance, certain people are in charge of First Aid, Equipment, Finance etc.
I was rooting for Finance as I like sorting that sort of stuff out (hence Maths A-Level, even though that was a horrific and pointless two years) - however I ended up being the only person not assigned a specific role for the entire duration, which I interpreted as being assigned the role of ´Minister without brief´
Not sure whether that was deliberate or not, but it suits me - I´ll just about be able to sort myself out let alone be in charge of anything else.

Tomorrow is a day off with which a few of us plan to go to Bouquete (about an hour away) to visit a coffee plantation and do some tasting - this is going to be right up my street as my time as an employee of Starbucks has instilled in me a passion for good coffee, a passion which has been frequently satisfied during this holiday.

Once again, Albin is threatening anger against me if I don´t finish writing soon so I had better do just that.
All that remains for me to say is goodnight, and tomorrow´s post will probably be my last for a while as we go out to the tribes the day after.
I realise you´ll be upset, but don´t cry - you´ll just savour the moment even more when I finally do get the chance to write. Or something along those lines - perhaps I´m being presumptuous.

Anyhow, goodnight/good morning.

JG

#24 - Rice and more rice

26/02/2011

Got up bright and early this morning despite being ridiculously tired.
We usually have breakfast at 8:30 but this morning, that´s when we left to head to the church.
It was the day of our kids programme!

We got there at about 9 and set up for the next hour until the kids started drifting in at the start time of 10am.
We were about ready to go at twenty past but someone had the bright idea of sending ´Pongo´(Andy dressed as a clown) and a couple of us round the local houses to get even more kids to come down to the church.
Only afterwards did I realise how suspicious we looked: two young men and clown moving from home to home asking if there are any kids that want to come with us.

So we eventually started at 11ish, punctual by Panamanian standards, and the kids were split into rough age groups and each group went to one of four stations: Bracelets run by Christina, Face Painting run by Jess and Bonnie, Water Assault Course run by Jarett and Rope Trick/Games run by me.
The first three are pretty self-explanatory, and mine consisted of me telling the story of Jesus´ love and sacrifice on the cross using three ropes with a little trick at the end followed by a variety of games to fill the time.
With one group we did 50 Yard Scream where you have to run as far as possible while screaming, and when you run out of breath to scream you stop and the winner is who gets the furthest. With another group, we build a human pyramid which worked really well and they loved it.

After each group had visited each station, everyone was brought into the hall for some dramas and games and then it was time to go.
We had around 50 kids come which was a real achievement as we had only told a few people we´d seen in the last few days - I guess news travels fast in a small community.
We were delighted to see the woman whos house we renovated come along with her kids - they all had a great time which was just brilliant to see as a culmination of our work here in Volcan.

We all had rice and beef cooked for us after we finished - rice is such a staple here and I´m really developing a passion for it. They cook it in such inventive ways and always with a nice sauce so that it never gets boring, plus once it´s been served you can fry it and make crunchy rice - mmm.
Myself, Christina and Liset stayed after that along with Stephen (the guy who leads the worship band at the church) to practise for tomorrow´s service - I´m playing their old guitar with horrifically tough and sharp strings, and the girls are singing. The rest of the team are leading all other aspects of the service.

I then nipped down to the shop at the end of the road to get some trousers - they´re compulsory wear for inside the church and BOTH the zip-ons for both of my zip-on trousers broke whilst in the launderette - so angry about that. That said, the pair I got are pretty stylish so every cloud and all that. They set me back $22 though which was a bit annoying.

By the time we were all home, we were unbelievably tired. Almost everyone went for a nap which left me, Albin, Liset and Jarett playing cards to destress. All the building work/ entertaining kids of the last few days plus late nights and early mornings have contributed to all of us being run down and tired, but spirits are pretty high and team morale is still good.
This was greatly aided by our meal this evening - a family prepared it then brought it round to the house (at Albin´s request to stop us having to walk, bless him), and by the time it came real hunger was setting in and I was in the mood where I occasionally snap.
However two monstrous portions of rice and three bread rolls later, I was happy as larry and we had a brilliant evening sitting around talking and making jokes at the expense of Jess mainly (Christina was in bed still).

As I have subtly alluded to a few times in this post, I´m very tired indeed so that´s your lot for tonight. I´m looking forward to getting tomorrow´s service out the way (I only phrase it like that due to the fact that we´ll all be knackered the entire way through) because after that, we have Sunday afternoon and the whole of Monday free. All we have to do is pack.
A chance to rest!

Another side-effect of fatigue is feeling homesick - earlier on, I just wanted me shower and my bed and my family and my friends more than pretty much anything.
But I´m over it now, it comes and goes.

Enjoy your Sunday.

JG

#23 - A good day's work

25/02/2011

I am writing this at 11:30pm with a whole host of insects buzzing and crawling all around the room and the laptop.
There's one about the size of a bumblebee which is making an almighty racket and unnerving me to be honest.
But I shall continue regardless.

Today saw the culmination of two phases.
First, there was the complete end of training as we had our last session with Don. He finished speaking about damaged emotions and I wish he could take lessons for weeks and weeks, it's just fascinating listening to him talk.

We then had lunch of a Panamanian soup with rice in which was delicious, and then some fried rice that was nice and crispy for seconds.

We then proceeded to the house/shack once again for our third day of work.
Jonny and Jarett got to work on the other half of the roof, while Andy and I set about finishing the french drain - we lined the edges of the hole we'd dug with massive rocks to provide a route for the water to run down and away into the street.
This took ages as we had to shift some hench rocks, including one which required massive effort from Andy, Ryan and myself to just about manouvre into position.

The buzzing has stopped now and I'm worried that either the insect is hiding, has entered my room or is crawling about my person.
I'll continue anyway.

We made some progress lining the drain and then I went to help Jonny and Jarett with the roof - they had done some brilliant work cutting and nailing in some supports horizontally across the ceiling to provide strength and also something to nail the tin roof sheets to.

Work was temporarily halted by a downpour of rain - the roof we put up yesterday held its ground - during which I improvised a game of hoop-lah with the kids using an old tyre and a crowbar. We then went with renewed vigour to finish the job.
I can't remember what order things happened but by 6:30, the other half of the roof was completed and the french drain was filled with pipes and rocks and looking pretty fine. We also put in a gutter on the rain-facing wall which makes it the only house in the area with guttering.

During all this, the girls again managed to entertain the kids from this family as well as some more locals, and did such a great job - all of them were having great fun and experiencing some real love which is usually shared out equally between many kids but for today was directed intensely on each of them individually.

It was a stirling effort by all to complete the work, and by the end we were all a mix of tiredness and overwhelmingly satisfaction at having made such a big difference to the lives of a whole family.
It certainly wasn't easy, but it certainly was worth it.

Afterwards we went to Rene (who helped us bring the materials for the work) and his wife's house for dinner, and then retired home to confirm plans for tomorrow. We are putting on a 2ish-hour event for local kids which includes a variety of games, music, drama and loads more, and as such takes a lot of planning.
However under Jonny's stewardship, everything seems to be in order.

Needless to say I'm shattered so that's all for today, but we can all go to bed knowing that a poor and desparate family have adequate protection against the crippling wind and rain that is experienced regularly here. If it's made them happier, I'm honoured to be part of the team responsible for doing so.
Thank God, not us, for that.

Good night.

JG

#22 - Fix the roof while the sun is shining

24/02/2011

Slightly overslept this morning (probably due to the shovelling) but still fitted in a quick shower and brush of teeth.

Don came to teach us on Spiritual Growth again, but spent the first half talking about Middle Eastern politics and how prophecies are being fulfilled thick and fast i.e. Iran and Russia joining together, the rise and rise of a country from the east (China). I could listen to him talking for days. We then all talked about how to heal damaged emotions and how if they aren´t healed, they will eventually surface in a range of negative ways - the only way to overcome theseis to ask God for forgiveness which He promises to grant us.

This made me realise how many times in the past that I had been a hypocrite, acted stupidly, abused people, manipulated people and generally wronged friends and family and that I had just buried and tried to forget most of these instances.
That was at the back of my mind for the entire day, so when we got in this evening I locked myself in the training room which was peaceful and started meditating and writing down all the times I could think of where I´d acted shamefully. The list was very long indeed.
I then went through each event in detail in my mind, tried to reason what had led me to do such a thing, and at the end I begged God for forgiveness.
That was less than an hour ago, and I finally feel that I´ve laid to rest some demons that were holding me back.
Thank God for that.

Returning to a chronological account of the day, we had an early lunch before setting back out to the house we began working on yesterday. By the way I was wrong, the woman doesn´t have five children: she has seven. If you could see the conditions of the interior that these kids live and sleep in, you´d be as heartbroken as I am.
I finished digging the drain right down to the roadside so water can run all the way down and won´t collect - this involved a lot of effort and moving several boulders that had been part of the ground for years and years.
While I was doing this, the others started work on the roof: the plan was to first nail across some wooden supports to reinforce the structure, and then nail tin sheets on top of those to make the roof.
By the end of the afternoon, that was exactly what happened and so we left the family with one half of a proper roof. ´One half?´, I hear you ask. Yes that´s right, the other half is on the side which doesn´t get quite as badly affected by the rain and so we focussed on the first half to begin with.
But after completing that challenge, none of us are in the mood to leave the job half-finished and so we plan to remove and rebuild the other half tomorrow.

We were so blessed not to have any rain during this process - at one point the entire roof was off so any rain would have further devastated the interior of the house.
While we were doing this, the girls did a stirling job entertaining numerous kids for 4 hours. Not sure quite how, but they did it and the kids had massive smiles on their faces throughout which was great to see.

After another exhausting but rewarding days work, we went to the church where two women cooked us a delicious dinner and we had homemade pineapple squash with loads of the pulp still in it. mmm.

We then got home and practised some of the songs in both English and Spanish, then called it a night at about half 8.
We are all exhausted in one way or another, but knowing that we are making a difference to a family that so desperately need something good to happen to them is spurring us all on and also uniting us further as a team.

So there we are, another day´s work done.
Sorry I don´t have the energy to write more, but I´ve tried to describe the key events of the day whilst prising my eyes open with my hands.

I can sleep a little better knowing that one woman and seven children are sleeping under a strong tin roof, not old rusty sheets weighed down with stones.

Until tomorrow.

JG

#21 - Hope?

23/02/2011

The day started with devotions out in the beautiful golden sunshine. The area we're in is one of the cooler areas of Panama, certainly not as intensely hot as Panama City, but this morning it was amazing.
Sorry to rub it in, I hear the weather in the UK is currently atrocious.

We also had frosted cornflakes for the first time in a few days - I've steered clear of the normal ones and opted for toast since then, but today a shortage of bread happily coincided with the return of the frosted ones.
Obviously I didn't ruin the cereal with milk - I find it astounding that people add milk to cereal, it makes it so disgustingly soggy and corrupts the flavour.

After a while here in Volcan, my bed sheets are pretty horrible. They have bits of dirt and leaves and smell of the times my sweaty body has tossed and turned in them - then again, I hardly think our beds in the tribes will be much better.

In the afternoon we started a major project.
There's a woman who lives in Volcan in a really poor area and has five children. Her husband abandoned her at some point and so she lives in a shack improvised mainly from tin - the rood is held down by stones and wood. She invited us inside, and it was heartbreaking - I could see dirt, damp, flies and goodness knows what else contained within that small area in which six people sleep every night.
My initial thought that I wrote down was 'how can I be happy again after seeing this?', because when I return home to my comfortable life these people will still be in the same dire situation and will become a memory to me. I will return to worrying about which clothes to wear and getting frustrated at the many expensive and needless gadgets I have not performing to full capacity, and these people will be humbly accepting their unlucky fate as they continue to do.

So anyway Amanda, an American from church who gave us the talk on Personalities, thought we could help them out by mending their roof.
After some surveying by Andy (a qualified structural engineer) and Jonny (who has experience of similar things), we decided first to build a drain in front of the house. Panama has two seasons, warm season and rainy season, and during the rainy season it rains pretty badly and apparently when this happens, the water runs freely through the whole of the house.
So Jarett and I set to work digging a big hole and clearing all the rocks that were in our way, and by the end of the afternoon we had pretty much finished the digging work - all that now remains is to make the hole a proper drain which we will do tomorrow.
While we were doing that, Jonny and Andy produced plans for how we're going to reinforce the interior structure which largely relies on old wooden beams. We'll get started on that tomorrow.
And while us men were doing that, the girls took all the kids to the adjoining field and played games and hung out with the kids. They're all so good with the kids and made them smile and have fun which is so great to see, and they're looking forward to going back to those same kids tomorrow and developing relationships there.

After our work, Amanda picked us up and took us to her house where her husband Tony was busy cooking us homemade burgers.
They were rapturously received and they had the full works available - seeded bun with lettuce, tomato, gherkins, mayonnaise, tomato ketchup and more. We then finished off with ice cream & brownies and a mug of black coffee.

When we got home, Jarett and Christina organised a meeting in which we practised certain songs in Spanish and some of the dramas we had learned earlier in the week.
 Partly due to tiredness and partly due to stress perhaps, certain points of tension were visible and short-tempered quick remarks were occasionally exchanged.
Luckily it was suggested that the guys go into one room to practise and the girls in another, so us men prayed for harmony in the group and to not lose focus on God through pride or tiredness. I have vast experience of girls and guys annoying each other to the point of heated tension due to tiredness, so the separation of sexes quite possibly was a vital act in preserving team harmony for the evening.
When we returned to the room, all was better and though we put in more hard work and were all knackered by the end, we all went to bed on good terms.

Today was a really big day.
Seeing the squalor that those kids live in really affected us all, but luckily we transferred our emotions into love and hard work to help the family as best we can, and we are all eager to get back to helping them tomorrow.
Also, it was the first time in which tempers started to flare up and almost led to a full-scale argument within the team.
However due to us guys making slight concessions to the girls in the name of harmony and also a renewal of focus midway through the evening, all was well and we did some good practising.
Thank God for that.

If you are reading this and feel inclined to, please pray for the family we spent time with today. The mother is slightly ill which I forgot to mention earlier, and how she manages to put food on the table for all the kids is nothing short of a miracle.
They have so little, and yet we have so much and complain that we don't have more.
They need our support in whichever ways we can give it.

Looking forward to tomorrow and seeing some positive and long-lasting results that will help them out.

Enjoy your day.

JG

#20 - Take my hand

22/02/2011

Today marks the second full week I´ve been here in Panama.
It´s amazing to think what has changed in my life in that short space of time - all the friends I´ve made, people I´ve met, things I´ve learned etc.
Just 97 days until I fly back.

Although most of our training is finished, one part which we haven´t done is Spiritual Growth.
This is because the guy who lectures it, Don Hammon, only got to Volcan on Saturday night.
He´s an absolutely inspirational guy - we think he is 76 and he was describing his travels for the year which I believe includes every continent.
He lives in California but seems to spend next to no time there whatsoever.
He´s also very very wise and after one morning´s teaching, I left with so many things to mull over and consider. He was talking about developing a close relationship with God, which I found really useful and appropriate as I have a tendency to defiantly attempt things under my own steam which has little potential for long-term success.
But yeah, for the rest of this week, he´ll teach us in the morning and we´ll do outreach in the afternoon.

This afternoon was our first proper outreach, and went quite well.
We went to a really poor, deprived area of Volcan where the houses are improvised shacks with tin roofs.
We got loads of the kids, about 15, together and played games and sang songs and did drama for the whole afternoon.
It was great to see them having a good time yet heartbreaking knowing that as soon as we leave them, their underprivileged lives would continue and we´d move on and eventually back into Western, capitalist, wasteful culture.
But if we touched their hearts and made even a small difference, it was well worth it.

So that was our first day of work over, and it seemed to go ok.
The dramas could have gone slightly better perhaps but all in all, we gave the kids a good time and some attention and love which must be scarce for them.
It´s just so difficult to make friends and see them so happy and yet leave a few hours later - one of them wouldn´t let go of Bonnie´s hand which upset me, as it just spelled out so clearly that these are people in need.

After that, we got home and had chicken paninis for dinner.
We then made pancakes with chocolate chips later on, and played Phase 10 (a card game) which I won for the second time in a row.
I´ve developed a reputation for being proficient at card games - I have always been fortunate at card games, but I put it down to a positive outlook and vibe which I always have when I play games or sport.

On a slightly different tack, Andy posed the question earlier that if I was shrunk to molecular level, which of his orifices would I prefer to enter his body by to take a look around?
We´ve also had the question ´´What is your dream mode of transport?´´ bounded around at various times, and my instinctive answer was in my view the best: Jetpack.
It would combine both a close simulation of flying with lightning speed and usefulness for shopping and stuff.

Albin just posted on my wall on Facebook that it´s past curfew (11pm) which is true, so I must sign off.
However I´d just like to say a massive thank you for all prayers and messages/emails of support that I´ve received while I´m over here.
Each one gives me a boost to know that I am so fortunate to have amazing family and friends and church congregation supporting me and thinking of me, and such support will be vitally important when we are massively tested in the jungles.
So thank you one and all.
Until tomorrow, buenos noches.

JG

#19 - Waterfall

21/02/2011

Today was a rest day after an absolutely shattering week of training and before we start our actual outreach in Volcan tomorrow.

Got up slightly later than usual which was nice.
Jarett had perhaps the oddest breakfast I´ve ever encountered, kicking off with leftover Spaghetti Bolognaise from a couple of days ago followed by cornflakes, chocolate spread on toast and rounded off with a slice of birthday cake.
I´m ashamed to say I joined him in having the birthday cake.
We also had Fleetwood Mac on the stereo in the background which made it a truly brilliant breakfast.

In a fit of North-American logic, we decided to use our rest day for a hike.
We got a bus to Serra Punta which featured ´Don´t Stop Believin´, ´Total Eclipse Of The Heart´and most awesomely, the Ghostbusters theme tune - what a great radio station! Their bus system is refreshingly casual - if you see a bus coming you flag it down wherever you are and it will generally take you wherever you want to go if it´s heading in that rough direction.
A taxi then took us to a local national park which I can´t for the life of me remember the name of.
The taxi ride was certainly interesting - there were 6 of us (Jonny went to the doctors as he has a bad wrist) and yet the taxi had just 4 available seats. However as luck would have it, it was a pickup so Christina and I sat in the back with the wind rushing through our faces as we clung on for dear life in a decision I´d describe as certainly reckless and probably illegal.
But it was a great experience, especially with the winding mountain roads.

So we got to the entrance, paid our $5 and made our way up the mountain path.
The route we chose took 2 and a half hours including stops, the centrepiece of which was a beautiful waterfall where we had a little paddle and got some brilliant photos.
The hike itself was a fairly steep path littered with rocks and stones and slushy mud which claimed both Jarett and Christina as victims on separate occasions.

When we finished, we went to a little cafe in a hut which could only offer us soup and coffee which we gratefully accepted as we had taken no food on the hike and it was now 2:15pm.
The soup tasted quite nice and had a load of random things in it such as yam, beef and various other colourful things.
The coffee wasn´t anything to shout about.

We then got a taxi and bus back to Volcan, stopped at the Panaderia for a beef pasty and biscuit and then returned home.
I took the rare opportunity to go on Facebook Chat and actually talk to people rather than leaving messages for people to pick up the following day - we´re 5 hours behind you in the UK so usually by the time our daily activities are finished it´s too late to talk to folks back home.

Us lads then had a superb evening - Albin recommended a restaurant we could go to where there aren´t any Christians and which we could therefore order alcoholic beverages without bringing shame upon OM (the company I´m here with) or the local church. Despite the numerous references to wine being enjoyed in the Bible, the Christians take a puritan attitude towards alcohol and cigarettes over here.
So off we went, and we found the place. We had two small bottles of beer which were pretty good, but it was just great to be out as lads and properly talk with no inhibitions or fear of offending people (not that it usually stops us). But in all serious, it was great for us to all talk about the roles we´ll need to take within the team and how we´ll help support each other and the girls.
We asked to see a food menu but the look of surprise on the face of the ´waiter´ when we did so was enough of a giveaway that good food would be found elsewhere, so we moved on.
We found a great little pizzeria where we ordered two 12´´ pizzas, 1 pepperoni and 1 which was a combination of chicken and various other things. It was more than enough, and we left fully satisfied.

When we got back, Albin announced that the two leading the team this week are Jarett and Christina - PHEW it isn´t me! I´m looking forward to my turn as leader but I´m more than happy to support others in the first week while we find our collective feet and make the basic mistakes that will be ironed out throughout the remaining weeks.

Andy just walked over to me wearing just pants and said ´Hellooo´.
As the ´joven´ (young boy) of the group, a nickname which has well and truly stuck and I don´t mind to be honest, I feel this was an inappropriate thing to do.

Must get to sleep - Jarett and Christina will need all hands on deck so I´ll need a good 8 hours minimum.

Until tomorrow, farewell.

JG

#18 - A load off my mind

20/02/2011

Jess enjoyed her birthday surprise - she enjoyed the decorations but was shockingly ungrateful for the spam and toilet roll.
People these days!

Went to collect my washing from the launderette, and in the mean time gave another load in - they do a load for $1.50 and fold it as well so you can't really complain.
It is also a great chance to combine the trip with a visit to the Panaderia, which Jarett and I did. I got a cinnamon doughnut.

We then went to the church service, which was enjoyable. However I walked down in shorts and was about to zip on the removable trouser legs (trousers must be worn in the churches here) when I realised that the zip had broken off one of them.
I unconvincingly limped into the hall holding the right leg on, sat down quickly and we managed to procure 4 safety pins with which I produced a fudged effort - they were attached but every once in a while, the leg would sag down and my knee would be exposed.
However I managed to get through the service ok.

When we got home, the rest of the day was free.
Albin explained how today and tomorrow are both free for us to relax and reclaim some of the energy that had been slowly but relentlessly sapped during the past week through all the training.
Don't get me wrong, we learned some really awesome and useful things but all at once, so my head was pretty much spinning for the whole week hence the mini-breakdown yesterday.

So the day was free to do with it what we willed.
Ryan took everyone else to a national park for a hike (which they eventually wimped out of due to rain) so I gratefully grabbed the opportunity to be home alone for the first time in about 12 days.
I emailed Mum on the offchance she may be online (it was 8:30pm UK time) and she was, so w had a Skype call.
Everything back home seems to be good - my room has been comprehensively cleaned and dusted, a job I have never undertaken in around 14 years. Hattie seems to have moved in to her new flat ok. Grandma and Grandpa came for coffee and are well.
So everything's ok in summary.

 Dad then got home about an hour later so I managed to talk to him for about half an hour as well, so both parents are up to date and it's nice to actually talk to people rather than just leaving a message and waiting for a reply a few hours later.

They got back around 6pm which coincided with Kelly and the girls bringing over the cake they'd made - Luce-Marie had also bought a cake so we had two cakes and popcorn for dinner.
They were both exceedingly good in taste, I just couldn't get enough of them.

We then spent ages playing Phase 10, a derivative of Rummy which I'd played before and went on to win after a closely-fought battle.
That annoyed Christina which was fair enough as when she was in the lead, I played a total of 6 skip cards against her and I'd be pretty hacked off if someone did that to me.
But it's just banter.

Today was nice for four main reasons: a) giving Jess a nice birthday surprise, b) talking to my parents, c) having some time not training and d) having those couple of hours to myself in the house.
No matter how awesome my team are (and they are), I need time to myself and that has been very scarce recently.
It was bliss.

Finished the evening just chilling, anecdoting, drinking Diet Coke and massaging Andy's thighs which he seemed to enjoy rather worryingly.
He also made a thong out of foil of which I have some excellent photos.

Time for bed - we're going into the mountains for a hike tomorrow (typical, using our day off for strenuous exercise) so I had better get some sleeeep.

By the way - big respect to those of you who spotted both the reference to the Ariel adverts (trip to the launderette) and to feeling more at ease (relaxing afternoon) in the title.
Top marks.

But yeah, suffice to say that I didn't have a downer like yesterday.
I feel sane again.
Praise God for that.
Nighty night/good morning.

JG

#17 - Homesick

19/02/2011

Had a good nights sleep - almost 8 hours which contained loads of crazy dreams which I now sadly can´t remember. Also, for the second night in a row I woke up around 3 times in the night which was strange.

However despite this, I woke up feeling mentally tired and just unmotivated and wanting to go home.
Though I´m loving what we´re doing, it´s a very daunting prospect and I think a combination of tiredness and nerves got to me.
But I shrugged it off.

The first thing we did was act out a conversation between a Christian and a Muslim using the Qur´an quotes we learned about yesterday to try and make them think about who ´Isa (Jesus) is, as in the Qur´an He is referrer to as Holy, Messiah etc and yet this is never discussed or thought about.
I played a Christian and Andy was Aqbal, a Shi´ite Muslim who made it very difficult for me by stonewalling me and shouting ´Infidel!´.

We then had a break - we had biscuits with this pineapple puree on, it´s really sweet and delicious and goes with pretty much everything.
Unfortunately after the break, my negative feelings from earlier came back strongly to me.
Here are the exac quotes of what I wrote in my notebook:

´´really feel homesick. sick of unfamiliarity, sick of having to learn so much, low on energy, want to go home and rest. 100 days left which seems like forever. sick of not understanding people and feeling like a fish out of water. sick of bugs biting me, sick of not having a proper shower. need some alone time, annoying having almost no time to think for myself and I´m slowly going crazy. Honeymoon period definitely over´´.

Suffice to say a lot of things got on top of me and writing them down was the one way I could think of to vent my built-up frustration.
It´s true that all the above situations/aspects of this trip are indeed annoying - in fact, though the language is perhaps over-emotive the sentiments are more or less still accurate.
But I didn´t come on this trip for a holiday - I came to be tested and to be out of my comfort zone, and that is exactly what is happening.
Even though things aren´t easy, I´m in a really lucky and privileged position to be able to come here and spread the Word of God in this beautiful country with so many brilliant people.

In fact, I feel a lot better just after having written the above sentence.
Doesn´t mean I´m not homesick - I very much am. And it doesn´t mean that there aren´t plenty of things making this trip difficult (add one sunburnt arm to that list), but I need to get over myself and spend my time helping out people who need it rather than moping.

After lunch, had a walk to the Panaderia with Jarett where we both echoed this similar sentiment and it was good just to get it off my chest and move on.
So move on I did, and move on through the day we shall.

The afternoon was our first outreach - we went to the local park where there were a group of kids.
Jarett and Christina were dressed and made-up as mimes so they did their thing while some of the others played volleyball and chatted to some of them.
Jonny and I got a big group of guys together for a football match.

It was good, South Americans play with such flair and panache even at a young age (they were between 12 and 15 I think) and they certainly taught us gringos a lesson.

After many hours doing that, we went to the Panaderia as a group and got some ice cream for the outrageously low price of $0.30c for a scoop in a cone. It was damn good ice cream as well, vanilla with chocolate bits in.

Dinner was another local dish that was sort of beef jerky-esque, and delicious at that.
The food is consistently awesome here, the one negative side to that being that it can only get worse from here onwards.
We can´t really prepare for what the tribes will give us as it will vary greatly but we know two things:
1) they could put together any combination of plantanes, fruits, sweet potatoes, nuts etc. and cook them in the most random of ways which may seem disgusting to us
2) it´s considered extremely rude to leave any food on your plate, so we eat what we´re given and there´s no two ways about it.
Should be both interesting and potentially horrifying.

We then went to Ryan and Kelly´s to watch Chariots of Fire, an odd choice for Americans to show a group including two Englishmen plus another two from the British Isles but there we go.
An outpouring of patriotism ensued which they took gracefully, at least externally.

It´s Jess´s birthday tomorrow so when we got back, us four guys spent an hour decorating the kitchen.
The theme was space-age so as such we covered a chair in foil for her throne, plates and cutlery in foil for her to use, wrapped all her presents (some of which are random objects from around the house, some of which are what we bought her earlier inc. spam, and also a pair of Andy´s girl pants) and made paper chains and stuck balloons everywhere and stuff.
It was a good effort to be fair to us.
It´s also funny how many role-reversals occur in this group - not only did we spend ages decorating a kitchen, but it is consistently us guys who do the washing and drying up and the girls who complain on the very rare occasion they have to.

On that mildly sexist note, I must go to bed - it´s 1am and we have church this morning and before that have to give Jess all her presents (can´t wait to see when she opens the oven glove or the salad server or the clog).

If you are reading this, know that I love and miss you very much.
Until tomorrow, ta ta.

JG

#16 - Sunni day

18/02/11

Shaved Andrew again this morning.
Yesterday was with his electric to sculpt, and today was with a manual to get rid of excess stubble and give him some killer sideburns.

The bites are fairly annoying, not going to lie. But I don´t want to waste the insect repellant so I´ll tolerate them for now - at least I can moan on here and no-one can really complain back.

Our training today was about a method called The Camel, which is a method for reaching out to and engaging with Muslims. It has features such as quotes from the Qur´an which confirm the deity of Jesus and yet that is against their doctrine - this is because from an early age, they simply have to memories the Qur´an and are not allowed to debate or dispute its teachings.
It was very interesting because I have so much respect and love for the Muslim community - they get such a bad rep because a tiny minority commit terrorist atrocities which are completely in contrary to the teachings of the Qur´an.

Had our daily trip to the Panaderia - as we arrived a massive rain storm erupted so me and Jarett were trapped there for an hour.
It was such an unfortunate situation - trapped for one hour in a cake shop.
We had no choice but to, in desparation, try loads of the cakes. After all, we had no idea how long our predicament would last so we were being sensible by stocking up on nutrients and carbohydrates.
The cakes were absolutely gurtlush - one was a cinnamony pastry with icing and a cherry on top.

Ryan came over in the afternoon to talk to us about cultural differences that we need to be prepared for.
There were three different categories: time, communication and the role of the self.
For instance, over here the attitude to timings is relaxed so if I asked someone to come round for 8, they would consider it rude to come at 8 as that regresses the relationship to a businesslike meeting.
Instead they´d come at around 9 to show we were good friends.
This would infuriate me.

I can´t explain enough how Ryan is the nicest guy you could ever meet - he has such a contagiously friendly personality. And he´s some company for the Americans to talk to in their improper accents.
On that note, I stuck the English flag on the door to the training room so for the past three days, we´ve all been training under witness of Her Majesty. Not sure the Americans have noticed yet.

Us guys felt we were perhaps annoying the girls earlier - we were using the volleyball for football as it´s so nice and soft, but they were complaining (with justification, it has to be said) that kicking it deflates it.
But we carried on.
This also happened to coincide with Ryan´s talk on the stages of team morale and how sooner or later, the honeymoon period would be over and we ought to be prepared for disagreements and things not going completely smoothly.
It´s certainly something to watch out for and luckily we´re all aware of it.
Partly with this in mind, we let them use the volleyball for volleyball (even though there´s no net) - men can be generous. And we did all the washing up that accumulated from lunch and dinner which took a good half an hour, which I hope they noted as they ought to be setting the example and completing the tasks society has assigned them.
That was a joke by the way, the sort of joke that us guys may now restrict so I´ll save them for here.

Dinner was beautiful as well - Lucy Maria (the housekeeper who also cooks and is an absolute legend) is a brilliant chef. It was some local delicacy that was kind of starchy and fried - a great combination.

I´ve decided to get more sleep as I´m averaging about 6 and a half hours a night which is more than I averaged when I worked for Starbucks but still, on top of the training it´s difficult.
The time is currently 9:48pm so I could realistically be in bed by 10:30 which would be the earliest time for a good few months.

We´re now almost 10 days in - seems so much longer than that, home is a distant memory.
A few times a day I think about home and just want to be there, back in normality, more than anything - things are great here but part of me always wants the comfort of being back in the UK.
Seems like so long until I´ll be home.

Andy just came up to me, farted, then left.

Quick apology for mocking Luke yesterday - it was unnecessary and it´s his birthday today so happy birthday mate.

Hope you have a nice day.

JG

#15 - Face-paint and folly

17/02/2011

I have acquired a ridiculous number of mosquito bites in the last couple of days . I have a few on my back but it´s mainly my juicy, muscular legs they´ve gone for - they know a tasty dish when they see one.
They´re so damn annoying though, I just want to scratch!!!

Today was the first time I´ve not showered in the morning - in fairness I had a shower yesterday evening but I´m usually really conscious about such things and yet it didn´t bother me that much.
I suppose it´s good practise for when we´re washing in rivers/not at all, and maybe it will make me more conservative with use of the power shower in my bathroom at home.
Or maybe it´ll make me crave it even more.
I really could do with it now - my feet are pretty dirty cause we´re walking around everywhere in flip flops so dust and mud gets picked up really easily, and the shower-head isn´t removable so there´s no way of focussing the spray on my feet.
I´ve done my best but they´re looking more hobbit-like each day.

Lunch was chicken off the bone, which was nice but it´s so much easier eating fillets. The rice was in a delicious yellow sauce though so that more than made up for it.
Rice is pretty standard here, and apparently it´ll be the staple when we´re in the tribes.
That, and boiled plantanes.
Certainly going to be interesting - I´ll try to resist the urge to smuggle in sweets or chocolate.

The afternoon was absolutely classic.
Our lessons were on mime and clowning, both of which are brilliant tools for connecting with the kids apparently. First we learnt basic techniques and then we had a go ourselves.
Half of the group were clowns and half, including me, were mimes.
This involved an oval of white facepaint, black eyes and I improvised a thick black monobrow. I then finished off with a small dot on each cheek and pink lipstick.
Suffice to say I have some brilliant pictures that I can´t wait to show you all.

I then put my pyjama bottoms on and we all went down the road to the panaderia still in full dress - the clowns were also in the colourful overalls.
We interacted with some of the local youth which was fun, and we also got plenty of beeps from passing cars.
I decided to put on a brunette wig back to front, the resulting look being that of an escaped goth transvestite mental patient. Whenever I waved to someone they just walked faster. Now I know what it´s like to be Luke Hammond (wonder how long it´ll take him to read this and reply).

Dressing as a mime, and in particular the pink lipstick, was probably more enjoyable than it should have been for me and I felt very empowered.
I had a similar experience a few months ago where I dressed as a devil woman for halloween which involved a skintight black dress, red wig and red lipstick. Both times I have got into the role rather too readily.

We spent the evening playing an energetic and very competitive game of Dutch Blitz (which I won much to Christina´s chagrin). Andrew then asked me to shave him which was a weird experience and when you take into account that I removed a thorn from his foot the other day, it´s really rather suspect.

We were then shown a YouTube video of two botflies being removed from someone´s back.
I´ve seen similar or worse before - I particularly recall one of a man lying down and his wife squeezing pus out of a cyst in his back.
There was another one which I was sent a link to of the work of these people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepropetrovsk_maniacs.
I´m not going to describe it but it was and probably always will be the worst thing I´ve ever seen.
Read the article and see why.

So all in all it was a very interesting day; the facepainting and resulting activities being the clear highlight.
On a couple of occasions tensions arose within the group though only briefly; one was over washing up, with certain parties intimating that other parties hadn´t done their share etc. The other was not explicit but all of us guys detected that the girls were perhaps growing tired of some of our joking around, so we promptly stopped and all was well.
It´s bound to happen, especially when we´re taking so much information in and being so tired and spending such intense amounts of time with the same small group of people.
All we can do is pray that the inevitable spats that occur won´t be severe enough to disrupt our unity long-term, and that we can put aside all little issues and go out and do our absolute best to spread the Word.

Neeeed sleeep.
Goodnight.

JG

#14 - 7 days in the sun

16/02/2011

Needless to say I woke up shattered this morning after last night´s shindig.

I led ´Group Devotions´ - we have half-an-hour each morning to have a chat, read a bit of the Bible and listen to some music.
I kicked it off with ´God Of This City´, an absolute tune. I then led a brief study on The Parable Of The Lost Coin, opened the floor up for discussion then we listened to Amazing Grace. Nice way to start the day.

We then had some training on ´Spiritual Warfare´ which is an overly dramatic title with negative connotations. We were essentially briefed and prepared for some of the many challenges we will face, ranging as far as witchcraft and schisms within the team. It was all really interesting stuff but after the brief amount of sleep, a couple of us found it hard going. Note to self - get some sleep tonight.

Lunch was rice and gammon - the gammon was a bit dry if I´m honest but the rice had a nice sauce so all was well.
During the lunch break me, Jonny and Andy went to the Panaderia (bakery) to get some cakes.
Albin asked us to get him some Mamallena, a sort of fruity cake - however Andy thought it would be funny to first offer him an equally fresh, more fibrous option: horse dung.
There was a pile on the road between us and the panaderia, so he got a spare bag and picked it up. It absolutely stank.
When we got back to the house he offered it to Albin, who opened it to find a big surprise. I´m surprised he didn´t get more angry to be honest.
I got a cinnamon doughnut which was lush.

In the afternoon we had some time to learn some drama, and learned 2 pieces which we can perform to the tribes when we head out.
It took us all a while to loosen up, but boy did we.
The first one involves a scene with a teenage party, which simply involved drinking and dancing the robot when I volunteered to do it first.
However with each different practise, the mimed actions escalated to smoking marijuana, snorting cocaine and injecting heroin which may or may not be included when we perform in schools.
Andy then took the lead in the second piece, a role which he interpreted as dancing around gyrating his hips furiously and blowing a whistle extremely loudly and frequently. 

After a productive afternoon, it was time for exercise. Jonny, Jess, Jarett and I went for a run for about 20 minutes up to the church and back. Upon our return, we found Christina leading Andy, Albin and Bonnie in some yoga, so I promptly joined them. It did wonders for the numerous muscles I´d pulled - I don´t mean to complain but I have the legs of a 50 year old. Whenever I do exercise I pull my groin, it´s just standard, and usually either my quadrocep or hamstring because I have had tight hamstrings since I was a kid.
Like I say, I don´t mean to complain. But it´s annoying.

I had a shower straight away as I had about a litre of sweat about my person. A combination of the first hot water for a few days (the girls always use it up), using shampoo for the first time since I was here and having the relaxing yoga music playing in the background made it a beautiful sensual moment.
I can really see why women love having baths - the idea of a foamy bath with relaxing music and a glass of champagne is really rather a fantastic one, and I experienced a watered-down (pardon the pun) version this evening.

That was followed straight away by dinner, which was amazing. We had a Panamanian delicacy of which I can´t for the life of me remember the name, but they´re fried and sort of like crispy naan bread. Suffice to say they were veeeeeeery nice. To accompany it was Hot Chocolate with a hint of cinnamon - can´t complain on any level really.

We then spent the evening watching the film ´Facing the Giants´ - I put on my pyjamas and glasses and really enjoyed the comfort that this brought in abundance. We even had snacks from the panaderia - raisin biscuits and little pastry things, plus the company of Americans whilst watching a film that conforms to almost all American stereotypes and this contributed to it being a brilliant experience.

It´s been a really fun day - I´ve lost count of how many times I´ve collapsed laughing.
Team spirit is very high indeed and it really contributes to great productivity and a feeling of goodwill and prosperity around the whole house and in everything we do.
I´ve made some friends for life in the last 5 days.

It´s now been over a week in Panama, and I´ve largely had a brilliant time.
All the people I´ve met have been massively friendly and genuine, and everything I´ve learned and experienced has been both useful and fun. I have probably changed in many ways already without realising, and that´s due to being in a fantastic culture with fantastic people.

However I miss the routine of home; waking up in my bed, using my shower, being close to my friends and family, being able to understand everyone in the street. I could go on.
But every day I´m out here gives me more experience of life´s realties, such as being away from everything that is normal and familiar and safe.
There have already been massive highs, and there will be so many more when we hopefully see fruit come from the work we do in each community.
However I´m also well aware that there will be lows; times when I want space to myself but can´t get it for long enough, times when we feel that we´re making no difference, times when I get sick of being in another culture.
But like I said, each day I´m learning more about myself and about the world.
So I´ll count my blessings and be grateful for the amazing opportunity I have over here to do God´s work.

Happy days.

JG

#13 - Testimony

15/02/2011

Got up for devotions at 8, then had some cereal and two cups of coffee for breakfast. I am absolutely caning the coffee while I'm here, it tastes so good and energy is everything.

We then spent the morning writing our testimony in three minutes. A testimony is the story of how you came to know God. I'll finish this blog post with mine.

We then practised out sermons but just a 5-minute version, mine didn't go so well but after reading through it I have some ideas of how to restructure it so that's all good.


At lunch we all compared the weirdest foods we'd eaten. All I came up with was the octopus I had a few days ago, but Jarett certainly won the contest: among his were goat stomach and tuna sperm. Nothing more to say about that to be honest.
We then continued our education of the Americans with more Mr Bean and a few of Derren Brown's various stunts - they were impressed. We showed them when he gets winnings on a losing greyhound racing ticket, and when he walks up to a guy and convinces him to hand over his keys and wallet. Crazy.

We then spent an incredibly interesting afternoon with Amanda, one of the locals (she's American, where are they all coming from!). We each took a comprehensive test to find out what type of personality we are.
I am mainly a Perfect Melancholy, which means that I like order and striving for a perfect result. My emotional needs are sensitivity, support, space and silence. The other types of personalities are: Popular Sanguine (outgoing, confident and charming), Powerful Choleric (goal-setters who like control and getting credit for work) and Peaceful Phlegmatic (want peace and quiet and lack of stress). There's a lot more to it, maybe look up the test and see which categories you fall into, the guy who wrote it is Fred Littauer.
Really interesting stuff, and useful for assigning people to different tasks within a team which will come into play throughout the two months.

We went round to Ryan and Kelly's for dinner, which was burgers and fries. We then made 'Smores', which is when you toast a marshmallow, put it between two biscuits and put chocolate on top and then eat it. Typically American, undoubtably delicious.
We then did 'Startipping', when you focus on one star and spin around maintaining eye contact with the star. After around 10 seconds, someone shines a light in your eye and you have to stay standing up (almost impossible, Andrew managed to but was flailing and stumbling around like a big gorilla in doing so).
Me, Jarett, Jonny and Jess ran back which was good exercise - fair play to Jess for doing it in flip flops, and also for keeping up with us men (a joke of course, but we were riffing off the sexist banter extensively for a while after we got back).

When we gor back, I played 'Titanic: Two The Surface', a brilliant spoof-trailer for a sequel to Titanic where Jack Dawson is found frozen at the bottom of the ocean and has to get accustomed to 21st century life without Rose. It's put together with clips from several Leonardo di Caprio films, and is definitely worth a watch.

For some reason a load of us stayed up really late - it's quarter to 1am and we'll probably be up at 715 so I had better get some sleep.
But firstly I'll briefly share my testimony:


For the first 16 years of my life, I was happy enough not knowing or caring about God. In fact I mocked those who did, and thought that my lifestyle of selfishness and striving after girls, alcohol and occasionally drugs was all there was. I was happy enough living in a bubble of insecurity but looking back, there was no direction or real worth to my life.

I then left Southam College after GCSEs, and was drawn to Myton Sixth Form - looking back there was no particular reason I had, so maybe God was giving me a nudge. I met some amazing people who are now my best friends (Luke, Steph, Rach), and I realised there was something about them that I hadn't seen in anyone else before. They had a real aura, and after a few weeks I realised they were Christians.

They invited me to their church youth group Christmas meal, which I went to. I saw Marieke (now another of my best friends) giving her testimony, and the amazing emotion she conveyed really struck me - here was someone brought to tears with happiness talking about something I knew nothing about. It stirred my interest further.

Over the next few weeks, I came along to the youth group and even started attending church - I couldn't believe it, a few months earlier the concept of going to church would have brought a reaction of scorn and ridicule. But I kept going, and slowly I came to realise that I had been living for so long without something so unbelievably important: a relationship with God, the guy who created all of us and everything around us. He loves us an incredible amount, and no matter how much we do that is wrong and caused hurt to Him or other people, He will forgive us because of that love. That really struck me, because throughout this time I came to realise I wasn't a great person in any sense really and yet despite my numerous shortcomings, God loves me.

It's a pretty awesome reality, and something that we shouldn't hide away from or treat with scorn but look into, think about, investigate. If you think I'm talking complete trash, find me a historian who will dispute the historical accuracy and legitimacy of the Bible which clearly states accounts of Jesus' life and teachings.

And don't get me wrong - I'm hardly a saint now, in fact anything but. I still sin all the time; I hurt people, manipulate people, get angry, am selfish and many more things I wish I wasn't.
But I have been lucky enough to be shown God's love and invite Him into my life, and for the first time I am happy and enjoying myself and my life has a purpose.

I didn't just come to Panama to chill, I came to help out poverty-stricken communities and show them that we are inspired and energised by God's love. We're not here to force ourselves or our faith on anyone, we're here to help people with whatever needs doing and to participate in the local churches.
And it's all because of God.

If you don't know God, I really ask you to just ask a Christian friend or relative about their testimony, or maybe pop down to your church - I promise you won't regret it.

God bless all of you

JG

#12 - Train-ing station

14/02/2011

Before you ask, no I couldn't think of a better title than the lame one I came up with.

Started the day by reading the card Amy got me with explicit instructions to be opened today, Valentine's Day, of all days. It was really nice though made me think a lot about who and what I miss about home, which is an awful lot of people and things respectively. But we're having such a great time here I hardly get a chance to think about it for too long, which is probably a good thing in terms of not getting homesick.

I then brushed my teeth to the point of drawing blood in my gums - this keeps happening cos I'm not used to using a manual toothbrush and I think I'm a little bit too eager. At least they're clean but I've opened up a hole inbetween my front two gnashers which is a little annoying.

Had a small breakfast - washing up is an absolute dream with the brilliant contraption they have here. It's a brush but with a reservoir of liquid in the handle which is fed onto the bristles as you apply pressure. Such a simple concept yet you don't see them in the UK. Might have to bring one back.

We had our first lesson of the trip, led by Ryan, and we're starting with how to preach. We're each going to get a chance to do it throughout the outreach, probably at least twice, and so we need to know how to prepare one and successfully give it - it's not as simple as reading a passage through and scratching the basic surface.

So we had a couple of hours of that followed by lunch. Not sure how but Jarett and I got onto a conversation about French people and gimpsuits. We had a scrumptious potato salad with chicken and garlic in it, it was truly delicious. On some of the days we've all felt kind of underfed on just sandwiches or whatever, but there could be no criticisms about either the taste or quantity of the meal. It was seriously good.

We then had a coffee break straight after lunch, which is the kind of schedule that suits me. So that was my third and fourth cups of the day.

Andy and I played a game during the break which basically involves throwing the ball at each other as hard as possible from a short distance, the aim being to catch the opponent's throw. We need a more pumped-up ball as we couldn't get enough pace to do any damage to either of the two target areas: face and genitals.

Our afternoon's training wrapped up the basics of how to prepare a sermon, and we were then told to go and prepare the skeletal structure of one. Mine's on Colossians 1: 15-20. Read it, it basically explains how awesome and loving God is in a really succinct way. Powerful stuff.

Our well-deserved dinner was pasta and bolognese sauce.
Afterwards, us Brits treated the Americans and Jarett to a few slices of Britain's historical culture cake - we scoured YouTube and found clips of the following:

- Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - the rollerblading scene. If you haven't seen it, look it up.
- Only Fools and Horses - the scene where he falls through the bar. Same applies.
- Byker Grove - the bit where PJ gets blinded
- Eastenders - a horrifically misogynistic yet hilarious scene involving Pat, Roy, Peggy and Frank
- Rainbow
- Button Moon
- Mr Blobby - the scene where he gets told he can't go on holiday.
- Mr Bean - the diving board scene.
- Fawlty Towers - the Germans scene.

I'm not sure they quite knew what to think, but I was in stitches almost the whole time especially at the SMDAE scene.

After that, we did some more work on our sermons and now me, Andy and Jarett are just chilling.
A couple of minutes ago, I helped Andy tweezer out a thorn that was embedded in his toe.
It was a strange experience.

I'd better get my beauty sleep, or rather sleep.

Chao (once again I remind people that that is the correct spelling, it's ciao in Italian)

JG

#11 - Chilled

13/02/2011

Had a nice lie in until 9 - such a lovely temperature to wake up to, nice and cool. Just before I went to sleep I heard Andrew sleeptalking in Spanish which was interesting - wish I could have understood what he was saying but it was disturbing anyway.

We all went to the local church for the morning service. We started by singing worship songs for like 45 minutes, which was really cool and there was loads of clapping and freedom of expression and praise to God which is rare in the UK. A few were sung partly in Spanish and partly in English - ´Open the eyes of my heart´and ´Holy Holy Holy´to name but two.
That was followed by Ryan (the American guy whos name I couldn´t remember yesterday) preaching on Jonah chapter 4 - he´s such a warm and friendly guy with the widest smile ever which hardly leaves his face. We then had rice and pasta with various vegetables and meat which was very nice.

We came back at around 2 and essentially did nothing of value until 7 when we ate.
We just played Uno (which I dominated) and more Jungle Fever, which sends everybody crazy and into a great mood. Jungle Fever is truly the most appropriate name for a game, everyone goes primal and it´s contagious. It´s a truly epic game which I hope to buy in some capacity when I get back to GB.

We made some paninis for dinner - just put some cheese inbetween two bits of bread and whacked it in the panini grill and it tasted so good. I then realised that putting butter on the outside of the bread made it golden brown and crispy, so that was an absolute winner.

Albin then gave us an hour-long dance lesson - there´s a style of dance called ´merenge´ from the Dominican Republic which is used to dance to one genre of worship songs they have over here. Albin´s a real smooth mover and the look in his eye and smile on his face when he shakes his booty is absolutely priceless - it was one of the most fun hours of the trip.
The merenge involves snake-like hips and lots of flair so needless to say I was unreally good. Sorry, I mean I wasn´t really good.
I felt truly sorry for Bonnie (my lucky dance partner) but it was enjoyable so hopefully we´ll have anothe go tomorrow.
I definitely didn´t practise in front of the bathroom mirror afterwards.

It came to light that the ´boxer shorts´that Andrew picked up in Panama City are in fact women´s underwear. Without saying anything libellous, the number of square centimetres of fabric are insufficient for most men which leaves but one possibility.
It is an absolutely brilliant tool for mockery though, and at least he´ll look the part when we visit the tribes.
To be fair, that last comment was probably racist so I take it back.

But if you were thinking that this trip is an absolute doddle and we´re nothing more than tourists, think again.
Tomorrow and in fact for the rest of the week, we start training at 9am and finish at 630pm, obviously with a break for lunch and two for coffee but even so it´s an intense week. Each day starts with ´devotions´ which is a lovely phrase, more expressive than just ´prayer´.
But yeah, it´s going to be great to learn more about what we can get up to during the outreach, so I´m looking forward to it.
In fact, it´s midnight so I had better go and practise the merenge by myself, I mean go to sleep.

Buenos noches

JG

#10 - Viva la Volcan

12/02/2011

The bus journey was pretty horrific.

When I got on, I was already sticky and smelly. I was right in the back corner, and for some reason there was a small slow drip of water on my left shoulder which occasionally relocated to my face, usually as I was nodding off. The air con was also so effective that I almost contracted pneumonia, so I resorted to putting my pjyama top on. It was effective.

We then got to the terminal at 7am, which wasn´t a great experience. I can´t put my finger on why but it was the first time in Panama that I felt intimidated and vulnerable - people speaking loudly in Spanish, people offering taxi and bus journeys, people walking so close you half wonder whether they´re trying to pickpocket you, that sort of thing.
I suppose I had better get used to it, especially for my travelling in South America. There isn´t going to be anyone prompting me to do stuff, holding my hand, keeping an eye on me. I´m going to be all on my own which is going to be extremely fun but also potentially dangerous. But it´ll be a great experience either way.

We then eventually got to the house in Volcan, our base for the next week and a bit while we train. Some slept and some of us played some more card games, one called Jungle Rush which is absolutely mental and one called Dutch Blitz. We then had an absolutely epic fruit salad which was most welcome - the one let-down was the presence of banana. I haven´t had banana for about 16 years and I wasn´t about to start, so I carefully picked out the little yellow bits and ensured they didn´t enter the vicinity of my plate.

In the afternoon we went to a random place in the mountains and met the guys that are going to be training us, an American couple with names that I can´t remember. We had a cappuccino which was lukewarm at best as the woman brought them out to us in the garden 2 at a time and there were 12 of us. We each had a couple of minutes to fully explain who we were, where we came from, how and why we came to be here etc.
During this outing, we started to see the indigenous people for the first time. Panama City is such a diverse and multicultural place full of Chinese, Arabs, Westerners and such so there´s no real identity to the people but they´re all a similar look out here in the sticks. They´re also all pretty short.

In the evening we had an Argentinian tea called ´mate´ (pronounced ma-tay). It´s really cool, they serve it in a small wooden thing almost like a pipe and pour hot water on. You then drink your bit through a silver spout and when you run out, you pass to the next person and they add their water. It´s very social, and made us all very hyper.

I have acquired the nickname ´joven´ which means ´young boy´. This is because I was referred to in such a way about 3 times yesterday - in the temple the guy said ´and you are a student´ after asking everyone else what they did for a job, and I was referred to in passing as ´joven´ by a coffee seller. I guess I give out enough mockery to the Americans so it´s only fair that I receive a fair bit, and it´s all good natured.
We have also all taken to greatly exaggerating each other´s accents - for instance, Jessica and Christina´s accents are morphed into Italian-American gangster ´cwarfee and bay-gels´ sort of thing. Also Jarret pronounces out ´oot´ which I tend to exploit, and Andrew essentially speaks the Queen´s English so it can be easily picked on.
Shows that our team is bonding quickly and strongly which is a good sign.

Very much looking forward to getting out to the local churches and spreading the Gospel - it´ll be a real challenge but exciting and rewarding whatever happens. If we can show how God inspires all of us through helping out the various communities and what have you, we could potentially do some significant work out here. Some prayer for that would be great, simply for them to at least receive us warmly and be open to what we have to say. It´s in God´s hands anyway, we can only do our best.

Until then, buenos noches.

JG

#9 - Temple Tour

11/02/2011

Today was our first and last day in Panama City as a group, and was a tour of local temples and religious houses.

We started off with the very beautiful Baha´i Temple, cool design and on top of a massive hill so it is visible from as far away as possible and has a great backdrop. Look it up on Google Images.
It has no windows so was beautifully fresh and had lovely flowers.

We then went to a Hindu Temple, much more simple and with small statues of their various gods with different skin colours and various animal limbs stuck on to them. I went to a balcony and saw a guy right outside urinating against a tree which somewhat spoiled the vibe.

Next was a Muslim mosque - the guy who showed us round had good English and explained Islam succinctly, and I take my hat off for their 5 separate hours of prayer each day, that´s commendable devotion. But when he described Allah I couldn´t help but feel there was the fear and respect but with none of the joy and happiness that we Christians receive from God. They begrudgingly let the girls in but didn´t look them in the eye and referred to them as ´these´ right in front of them - not cool.

Last was a Greek Orthodox church, kind of Catholic in aesthetic with lots of gold and bright colours and statues and pictures of saints. Everything symbolises something, from special cloths to the number of pillars and the layout and stuff. And the Priest sang to us in almost a Muslim-sounding chant which seemed to last forever. He was a lovely bloke though.

Throughout these tours we obviously didn´t mention the fact that we are Christian Missionaries, it may not have gone down well particularly in the mosque or temple. The Baha´is are accepting and including of all religions, believing them to all be revelations of God appropriate to the time they formed so we were more than welcome there. But given past and present Christian-Muslim conflict, which is a big shame, it wouldn´t have been the most tactful thing to say.

We then went to the old city, lots of nice colonial European-looking architecture. Loads of people were selling locally made hats and rugs - I´m going to buy a Panama Hat the day before I return, they´re so cool. A man was sitting on a wall with a snake round his neck, and tried to charge us $5 to have a picture which we didn´t accept.

Our team is gelling well, the fact we all have English as our first language is lucky and means we can all trade banter and insults about each other´s cultures. To be honest, it´s mostly everyone attacking the Americans, including Jarett who´s Canadian, for their culture of excess and fast food and stuff - it´s fun. We´re going to buy them some proper chocolate because as I alluded to yesterday, they just have Hersheys which I wouldn´t wish upon my worst enemy. Dairy Milk is available in certain places here, so we´re going to open their eyes to proper chocolate.

We then went to a shopping mall to get some stuff such as sun lotion and nail clippers. I tried to go to the toilet but it was like the room in the Department of Mysteries in the fifth Harry Potter book with identical doors and it confused me. If you don´t understand that reference, it was essentially a neverending labyrinth. We almost managed to get Andrew to go to the girls toilets but he saw the sign at the last minute.
For pudding, I had Oreo ice-cream which was absolutely lush - one rare example of the Americans doing chocolate well. Also had more of the delicious coffee.

We got to the bus terminal at 10pm to get our 7-hour bus to Volcan, our base for the next week of training - however, it left at midnight so we had to kill time in the only building I have experienced so far not to have air conditioning. Suffice to say I felt sorry for my t-shirt afterwards. Jessica and Christina taught us Egyptian Rat Race which is an intense card game, so the time went kind of quickly.
Then we boarded the bus.

That was yesterday - I´ll put the second half of the journey and the rest of today´s events in a separate entry cos I want to keep to 1 post representing 1 day as much as is possible - obviously that won´t be possible when we go into the jungle to do outreach as we´ll be lucky to get to a computer once a week, but I´´ll stick a separate post on here this evening.

Chao for now.

JG

#8 - Taking shape

10/02/2011

Got up fairly early this morning, felt ok considering the abundance of weirdness I ate last night.
The others complained of stomach cramps, but I think that's just because they ate so much.

Picked up the first other team member - also called Jonny. For this reason, I have decided to be known as Jon for the duration of the trip to simplify matters. Plus it's what my parents and sister call me so I'm used to it, I quite like the sound.

We went to the same place for breakfast and had more Boyo, some chorizo sausage and more of the lush fruit salad. And of course, a nice cup of strong Panamanian coffee. What a way to start the day.

We then relocated to our hotel that we're just staying in tonight - the room is very spacious, and it has additional benefits such as a bigger TV and most importantly, a courtyard with a swimming pool.
Me and Jonny went straight down to take advantage of these facilities, doing a mix of sunbathing and swimming - Albin said we are white and pastey so I see this as a challenge to tan-up as soon as possible. However I applied suncream liberally (Mum would be proud) so I feel this will be a slow and steady tanning process, but I'll reap the benefits e.g. not having snake skin.
We had fajitas for lunch though they were served without a tortilla wrap. Great confusion was caused when we ordered them, as they straight away brought out a bowl of soup and a glass of Iced Tea for each of us. Although we were well aware we hadn't ordered these, we delved into them whilst laughing about the potential consequences - however it then transpired that they are served with each meal, so drama was averted.

Our next teammate, Jessica, arrived at around 2:30 so we chatted to her for a bit. Albin and his friend Enrique then went to pick up the next guys so Jonny went for a sleep and me and Jessica went to the pool for a bit and then for a stroll round the city. The sun was ridiculously hot to the point where I could feel my skin dying out and stinging, but we got some great photos and had a nice chat which was important.
In a mission such as ours, team spirit and togetherness is going to be vital so I have taken it upon myself to get to know everyone as quickly as possible.
When we got back to the hotel, the water tasted soooo good. She gave me some sweets she had  brought with her, and I mentioned that I thought Hershey's chocolate had the aftertaste of vomit without realising the factory is 20 miles from her house. Oops.

Albin and Enrique arrived at 6pm with two more people, Andrew and Jarett. Andrew chose to take it easy so me, Jonny, Jessica and Jarett were taken for a mini tour of the islands on the edge of the city (where we went for seafood yesterday). He explained that until 1999 when Panama was given control of the canal, there were areas where Panamanians couldn't go! I decided not to go on a rant about Americans as I had already criticised a major aspect of their culture in front of Jessica once today.

We then went for a hamburger con papas (with chips) and also had some fried Yuca on the side - I'm getting to like this food, it's quite savoury. However apparently the indigenous tribes boil it rather than fry it and it tastes way worse boiled, so I'll enjoy it fried while I can.

We then returned to meet another arrival, Christina, and also to chat to Andrew for the first time. He's been in South America for around a month and is staying for 7 in total, then spending 4 months in Ukraine and Russia! He's then going back to his job as an architect. Interesting guy to talk to.

The others went to bed but we stayed talking until the last of our group, Bonnie, turned up about half an hour ago. So our team is as follows:

Me
Jonny, 23, from Northern Ireland
Jarett, 23, from Ontario, Canada
Andrew, 26, from London
Jessica, 20, from Pennsylvania, US
Christina, 20, from Virginia, US
Bonnie, 19, from Wales

We all speak English as our native language which is big, because it means we'll all be able to actually connect with and understand each other rather than simply understanding that Stig is 22 and enjoys dancing the salsa.

So we're all here - the work starts now. Actually on that note in case any of you were wondering how I've been on Facebook and stuff, that's purely because we've been chilling in hotels waiting for people to arrive.
From now on, it's going to be training then hard work (except for tomorrow where we have a tour of local temples and religious buildings).
But I'll keep writing my blog as much as I can - I can't let down my legions of followers back home.

Buenos noches

JG

#7 - A day in the city

09/02/2011

First full day in Panama. Slept til 730, watched TV for a bit then got a couple more hours sleep - surprised I don't feel more jetlagged.
Spent the whole day with Albin - we started by going for some breakfast at the local supermarket. Thought I may as well go straight into trying the local delicacies so I had Boyo (corn midway through growth cooked in some way, nice and buttery), Rosca (bread made with eggs, quite sweet), an omelette with ham and a DELICIOUS fruit salad - literally the best I've ever had including mango, pineapple many levels above what we have in the UK, succulent watermelon and more. All of this was alongside a proper strong black coffee with beans grown in Panama itself. Watermelon is 'sandia' in Spanish.

We then went to visit the Panama Canal, rocking out to some Hillsong in his car along the way. There was an exhibition where I learnt about the history of its construction - basically the French tried for 20 years, wimped out due to the tropical insects so went back home and the Americans took over and finished it in about 11 years. They then claimed ownership until 1999, when a treaty was signed and since then it's been fully owned by Panama.
So we spent some time there and watched a ship pass through, it's a very clever system but I won't go into it.

The weather here is very hot and humid, but it doesn't really have time to take massive effect because every building is heavily air conditioned - for example, I went out to a balcony to take some photos of the canal then shot back inside the moment I felt a bead of sweat and all was well. The car air-con is also epic, I swear it turned the car from an oven to a comfortable fridge in 15 seconds flat.

I saw a fair bit of Panama City from the car - it's a very busy and congested bustling city, goodness knows how much time we spent in traffic queues. In the middle of the road are loads of people selling things such as bottled drinks (an essential here due to the heat, haven't been dehydrated yet touch wood) and air fresheners, or thrusting adverts through open windows.

A few observations about the native people - firstly, the driving style is both exciting and terrifying. It's essentially an all-against-all jostling for position, use of indicators to change lane is very rare and as a result, many cars have multiple small scratches and dents. An example of this was when an ambulance came racing down the road - both lanes of cars pulled over to the side to let it through, and several taxis then followed it only a metre or so behind to take advantage of the free road!
There is also an unnerving lack of facial expression in every till assistant or vendor, and even when I smiled at them to say 'gracias' I got nothing back. Won't bother in future.

The weather is erratic - the morning and early afternoon was absolutely boiling hot and humid and yet when we went to a shopping mall for lunch, there was a terrential downpour for about an hour. There was also apparently an earthquake right where we are staying last night, but I felt nothing.

We went to an island right by the city called Isla Naos for dinner, and again I leapt straight into the local stuff (seafood, which I'm not usually too partial to). It was Kalamaris (little octopuses) for starters, they looked like the monsters from the film Cloverfield that run around and bite people with a poison that makes their stomachs explode. They tasted kind of weird, but it was more the look of them.
We then had a fish casserole including Octopus (brilliant photo of me eating the curly end of a tentacle), Clams, Prawns and some other fish in a garlic sauce. On the side we had some mashed plantanes and Yuca, a thing grown in the wild - both were fried and absolutely delicious.

After the meal, we went for a walk to the harbour and randomly saw a raccoon strolling about looking for food. Got some brilliant close-up photos.

The other 7 members of my team are coming tomorrow, which I'm very much looking forward to.
We're also moving to a more upmarket hotel which has a swimming pool - looking forward to that as well.

Until then, it's chao from me (yes I did spell that right, it's ciao in Italian).

Night night.

JG

#6 - Hola from Panama

08/02/11

So here I am in Panama City.
Firstly a few random and pointless observations and things I experienced on the way here:

- I was referred to as 'bruv' for the first time ever whilst checking in at Heathrow
- listened to a couple arguing for about 5 minutes straight in the departure lounge
- witnessed an incredible safety video from American Airlines, production as slick as one of their awfully cliched political adverts
- saw The Social Network on the flight over, brilliant film
- had 2 cans of Diet Coke on the flight, didn't used to be allowed to do that when I travelled with my parents
- had a very strange dream, can't remember it all but it involved the Statue of Liberty and cohabiting with talking animals in a jungle
- was well fed on the flight over - pizza, pasta, salad, bread, cheese, grapes, biscuits, nachos
- saw a fat security guard cruising round on a segway which was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen

and then I finally arrived in Panama City Tocumen International Airport.
the first sign I was greeted by read "Panama relentless fight against sinister trilogy: drugs, crime and terrorism" which was strangely poetic.

A guy at the airport tried to charge me $2 to use a luggage trolley, which I politely declined. Not sure if that's standard or he was trying to rip me off but I'll be wary right from the get-go.

The Panamanians seem very laid back and chilled out which is lucky as it's absolutely boiling hot out here. there's no law to say you have to wear a seatbelt in the back seats of a car and the taxi driver filled up with petrol whilst taking me and Albin (from OM, he greeted me at the airport), they're just two examples of the style over here.

On the way from the airport to the city, it was dark and I could see what looked like a row of buildings extending out from the main streets. However Albin informed me that it's a line of ships waiting to cross the Panama Canal, and they could easily be waiting for 2-3 days. Gutted.

We then went to our hotel which we're staying in for these first two nights, then we're moving to a more upmarket one with a swimming pool apparently. Went for a bit of a stroll, bought some nachos and cheese and now we're chilling in the hotel room.

So yeah, all is well.

JG

#5 - Farewell

08/02/2010

It's now 1:23am, I've finally finished packing and phoning people to say goodbye, uploaded the whole archive of Video Notices to YouTube and done goodness knows what else.
I've almost certainly forgotten something glaringly obvious - the classics are pyjamas and a toothbrush which I always used to forget on holidays. but at least I can buy stuff over there if need be.

Felt really sick this morning - could be nerves, an outpouring of emotions...or it could have been because I had a malaria tablet on an empty stomach without any water. I have a history of feeling/being sick before special occasions - I was horrendously sick the night before my science SATS in Year 6, still got a Level 5 though. and last October, I was all trained up ready to do the Great South Run but was sick 2 nights before and couldn't do it. but I wasn't actually sick so all's good. and whatever happens, I am boarding that plane that's for certain.

In fact, I'm boarding it in 8 hours 15 minutes.
From Heathrow.
So I'd really better get some sleep.
So the next time I write, I'll be in Panama (unless the plane gets blown up or crashes or something less exciting results in me not boarding the plane).
There's a scary thought.

Hasta luego.

JG

#4 - One more day, one day more

07/02/2011

Really not long at all left to go now.

One day left in the shire, then I'll be off to Heathrow and in Panama City by tuesday evening enjoying the local delicacies, which I think are mainly seafood based which I'm not overly excited about.

Lost count of many things today; people I've said bye to, good wishes/luck/prayers that have been directed at me and also, good times I've had. Church this morning was really good, I was interviewed in each service and apart from a microphone being too low and therefore forcing me to speak whilst looking at my chin, both went well.
then this evening, First Sunday was absolutely insanely good. It always is to be fair, but the quality and relevance of the music, talk and conversations and just about everything about it was perfect - no matter what your preconceptions may be, no-one could deny that God was in that place tonight.
such a perfect way to leave things here in Warwickshire.

Just got a few last minute bits and bobs to get tomorrow, meeting Amy for a coffee then a final family meal with Mum, Dad and Hattie and then I'm finally off.

Scared, excited, petrified, happy, overwhelmed, hopeful, optimistic, lucky, honoured.
The above words describe my mood right now.

Not long now before I'll actually have something interesting to write about.
Not long at all.

JG