19/03/2011 (posted 02/04/2011)
Woke up at 6:30am and washed some clothes then had a shower.
Having got up this early, I then had a nice hour to myself so just sat and let my mind wander as it likes to do.
I then remembered that I had brought a book about Harbury (my home village) with me. It was made when I was nine and features me talking about my village and what I like doing - it was made for Swedish students studying English. It also happens to have photos of me when I was young and innocent and blonde, and also has photos of my house and the rest of the village.
It was nice to be reminded of my home but at the same time, it really made me miss it.
I´m not sure whether homesick is the right term but I think about and miss England pretty much every day. Before now, the longest I´ve been away from home is three weeks and it´s now five and a half weeks here in Panama.
It´s tough sometimes.
Breakfast was vanilla custard, cereal and eggy bread. It was delicious and filling, the perfect start to a day! We didn´t have anything planned for the morning which was nice, so I read some of the Bible and also had a lovely long nap.
We then had rice with a lovely spicy tomato sauce - a few of the guys weren´t keen on the chilis in it but I was a fan. It made my nose run and my hair sweat which shows it was good and spicy.
In the afternoon we did two services.
The first was for kids and I had to dress as a clown. I put on the suit which STANK of sweat - we haven´t been washing it bewteen uses which really is a bad move - and got my face painted. I don´t like being a clown as I´m not used to being that energetic for prolonged periods of time. I just introduced myself as Juan the clown and joined in with a few of the activities, but if I´m honest I could have tried a lot harder.
One of the games involved the kids having to hit and pop balloons that were tied to me to get the sweets hidden in them. I was essentially pelted by shoes and hands for a couple of minutes. They seemed to enjoy the programme which is the most important thing.
We then nipped to the supermarket for a snack (Pineapple and Guava juice + cookies) and then led an evening service for adults. There was good attendance (though we later found out that this was mainly visitors from another church) and our dramas were well received.
After the service, the Pastor asked us on the spur of the moment if we could do a two-hour programme tomorrow morning. Christina and I deliberated for a bit as two hours is a really big ask - the trouble was that he then started offering to cook us lunch and dinner tomorrow, to sort out transport etc. We tried to stress that we weren't looking for incentives to go - we simply would have struggled to fill two hours with so little time to prepare.
Eventually, we committed to a one-hour long programme but I was annoyed as I felt the Pastor misinterpreted our actions as borne out of laziness and selfishness.
We then got home and he repeated his offer of the two meals tomorrow.
Though it's a lovely gesture, we have bought lots of food to see us right until the end of the week (including stuff for a roast dinner) so would ideally like to cook at least lunch OR dinner.
We tried to explain this but in Panama, to turn down such an offer is impolite so we eventually agreed to both despite the prospect of wasted food.
The really frustrating thing about this culture of relentless politeness is that it creates confusion and forces you to do unnecessary and inconvenient things. In England, we'd have said "thanks for the offer but we have already planned the meal so don't worry about it" and it would be fine.
However, here such actions would cause offence so after having first turned down the offer, we accepted.
I'm worried that for the second time in one afternoon, the Pastor has misinterpreted our honesty and pragmatism for impoliteness.
This frustrates me a lot as I hate people to think I'm impolite - rudeness is the one thing I will not tolerate and to be wrongly associated with it is very annoying for me.
This, on top of the prospect of having less sleep and having to rushedly plan a programme for tomorrow, means that I'm going to bed very annoyed indeed.
JG
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