Day 27: Final Presentation

On Friday we arrived early at the hotel to work on our final presentation. This presentation was a bit different than the others and we scrambled with time to put it together. It was nice to formally thank everyone who helped us along the way.

Of course, the presentation did not go off perfectly.We were scheduled to give our presentation around 11:20a... 11:45, noon, 12:20p... and they finally broke for lunch. But we were not able to eat until after our presentation, so our energy might have been lacking a tiny here. C'est la vie in Central America.

We were able to have lunch with the GSE who came to Missouri in October and spend our afternoon with Julieta shopping. It was nice to hear about their experience in Missouri, as well as the GSE as a whole.

Following our shopping trip, we went to meet with Rotary Club Metro for dinner and drinks at a local pub that happens to be owned by the boxer Roberto Duran. Apparently he makes appearances quite often.

The last few days of the trip have been a struggle energy wise and we headed home around 10:30p to get to some rest before heading to the canal on Saturday morning.

 

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Day 23: Christi Gets Caffinated

Why, hello there Panama. It's so nice to finally get to meet you. After feeling like a mosquito sucked my brain out yesterday, I was finally able to be officially introduced to the beautiful Panama City. And it is gorgeous. Like shut the front door, smack in the face, draw dropping gorgeous. Okay. Maybe I'm a little in love with the city because after a day like yesterday everything seems amazing. Whatever the reason, I'm constantly sneaking second glances at the city.

Today was our second day of vocational visits. Christi, Parker and I would all be visiting two universities together. Christi and I started with a delicious breakfast prepared by our host Jesus. It was some sort of decadent French, fluffy pancake-y, fruity, soufflé thing. If a person is only allowed so many delicious meals in one lifetime, I have definitely used them up in Central America.

We were picked up by a Rotarian and went to our first visit at the University of Panama. And this is where I added to the collection of lost or broken sunglasses. I had already sold my spare pair to Christi. I think the sunglasses graveyard is up to around seven now.

At the University, we met with a few areas, but again, Christi lucked out on this visit while meeting with the agriculture department. Lots of great information was exchanged and we had a fun visit with the department... and even received some Panamanian honey in exchange for the honey sticks we gave!

After the university, we went to lunch at La Posta and met up with Jimmy and his host for the day.

We had a super charming lunch at the cafe. If there is one thing I ask of Panama, it is to stop it with the food already. Tuna tartare, camarones, ravioli de hongos, risotto, octopus, plantains, pastel de tres leche... shut up already.

After the second decadent meal of the day, we went to the Universidad Tecnología de Panama.

Most technical universities in Central America can be compared to Missouri S&T. Lots of engineering types. This university was similar in that aspect, but also provided associate's degrees, the first I have heard of in CA. Also, at public universities in Panama, tuition is very minimal... as in, maybe $100 per year... including cafeteria charges, registration charges, etc. I still do not grasp the funding models, but I'm considering going into engineering for my next career. :) The most they students pay is for books. One of the faculty members we visited with said he had just bought the Spanish and English text of a book. In Panama, it was about $30. In the US, $150.

Probably the best part of our trip to this university was our guide, Humberto Alvarez. This university is very young and most staff and faculty actually attended undergrad here and then went to the US for their master's and doctorate programs. This is the only university of its kind in Panama, so it's very important for faculty to continue education outside of the university (to avoid stagnancy). Our guide actually attended Mizzou for his post-grad work. He was a lot of fun and super interesting to talk with. After our meeting, we were able to walk about campus... and a campus built by engineers and architects is pretty incredible.

After this meeting, we drove back into the city.

Christi and I live downtown and close to most things we have visited this week, so we have been lucky enough to not hit any crazy traffic that the others have had to deal with. Knock on wood.

I think this building is a favorite of all of us.

When we arrived back in the city, we met as a team to prepare our final presentation. When we walked in Jimmy was waiting for us... with Red Bulls. I can not explain my delight when someone greets me with caffeine. Christi isn't quite the caffeine junkies that Jimmy and I are, but I guess she was desperate because for the first time she also welcomed a Red Bull. Well, a half of a Red Bull. And... wow. Christi turned into toddler who just ate 20 pixie stix crossbred with a cheerleader on speed. It was maybe the most humorous thing I have seen this entire 23 days. I am confident for the rest of the trip I am going to lace all of Christi's drinks with a few drops of Red Bull.

We had to leave our presentation work to go meet with our Rotary of Panama North. We had a great informal dinner with them at yet another beautiful restaurant called Roma Antiques... or some word play on Romantics. When we were leaving, Christi (still in super Christi mode) tugged on my arm and HAD to tell me something. I was finishing a conversation and she was off before I knew what she needed. When she crossed the street back to me I soon found out why she needed to tell me how funny something was. Yet again, we (she) knows one person in Panama City... The screw worm (flesh eating bug) dude Christi met with at the embassy the day before happened to be across the street from us at that exact moment. Another strange moment.

So... needless to say, day two in Panama has been infinitely better than yesterday. We all had a great day with great vocational visits (and clearly too much great food). Tomorrow, Christi has a visit to a coffee plantation and the rest of us have some fun tours of the president's house, the old city, and a museum we are all interested in before the district conference kicks off tomorrow night.

We are super excited about the start of the district conference and getting to reunite with all the faces we have met over the past month. I know it will be overwhelming (in the best way possible) to see everyone who gave us so much of their time, opened their homes, their offices, their cars and their lives to us. We can not say thank you enough.

 

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Wrong Turn

GSE Team 6080 had a little weekend retreat at Lake of the Ozarks to get to know each other a little better, continue preparations, and meet with Rotary leaders for team building.

The bad news: I didn't get any pictures!

The good news: We successfully spent over 24 hours together.

The weekend began with the first roadblock we encountered as a team. I'm sure we'll see many more (and worse). Our team leader changed his coat in Springfield at the last minute (due to the weather forecast of ice and rain) and left the condo keys in his other coat pocket.

Luckily, we're adaptable and he's quick on his feet. So we met at a local breakfast joint with our Mark Pierce, Rotary District Governor who is from Warrensburg and Brad Bodenhausen the coordinator of our program and our lifeline who is from the Springfield Chamber of Commerce. He has also participated in a GSE exchange.

After breakfast, our condos were unlocked, and we were able to finalize a lot of planning. We worked on our team gifts for our host families and Rotaries, vocational visits, our presentation and finally (maybe most importantly) our team uniforms. For some reason, the clothing portion of our discussion was the most animated.

After deciding on the final looks we would have, we decided, 'Hey, we're near the outlet malls, let's just go shopping.' Much to my delight.

Christie and I sent the boys off and set out to look for our blazers, shirts and pants/skirts.

You know how when you go shopping with a friend and you like something or not? Or know you wouldn't wear it but it is so your friend's style? Well, it's a little more difficult when you are buying essentially matching outfits. Thankfully, we both like similar styles, and often found ourselves eyeing the exact same thing.

Oh, I lied. I did snap one photo of this gorgeous blazer we thought we were going to have to leave behind. Yes. I took a photo of a jacket because I was sad I would miss it.

We saw it and melted. However, we thought it was out of our budget. So we left it. As we met the guys in the car, they noticed our sadness. (Hey, we're girls. We get sad over clothes!) We made our way to Kohl's where the guys found almost identical blazers to our previous find and a 20% off coupon. And well, we found okay-blue blazers, just not as pretty as the ones before. So our team leader so generously said, we're going back. And you have never seen two girls be happier.

After many high-fives for being the best dressed GSE team ever, it was back to the condo to decompress and get ready for dinner.

We went to a local Mexican restaurant and luck would have it, our waiter spoke essentially no English. A great way to practice. At one point he asked if we needed another minute, to which I replied yes, thinking he had asked if we had had enough time, so, there is still so much to learn and prepare for!

As we were at dinner it started to ice so we made the trek back to our condo to watch a little football and ended up introducing Parker to Scattergories.

All day, Parker had been trying to think of nicknames for all of us. Christie was easy. She gets really, really excited about all things Missouri agriculture. So much so that you find yourself super engaged in a discussion of elderberries and grapes. So Uva (grape) was born.

During the game of Scattergories, Parker made a fatal mistake. He made his list with the wrong letter. We all have done this before. As soon as he realized it, he said, 'Oh, no. I took a wrong turn.' And thus, Wrong Turn was christened as his name. After 12 hours together, this probably seemed funnier to us than you. That's a good sign. We are already stupid together. Which to me, is the best team-building experience there is.

Sadly, I do not believe I came away with a nickname and I can not remember Jimmy's?? (Edit: Jimmy was christened with Poncho.)

On Sunday, we woke up to coffee (some of us might have a caffeine problem) and breakfast (some of us might have a hunger problem). We then discussed our presentations in depth so we could finish those.

Mid-morning, a former GSE team leader and past-district governor of Rotary came to talk to us. Raymond Plue led his group to India in 2004. He had some great advice on what to prepare for and ideas for us as a team. He also told us a ton of history on the GSE, which is pretty awesome because we are the last GSE team (as it is now).

Raymond is one of the best story tellers I have ever met. His stories come to life. He often had us laughing and occasionally had us near tears. He created such a vivid picture of what this GSE experience will mean to us professionally and personally. He has had so many experiences traveling the world as a Rotarian (often on motorcycle). It's just unreal we are getting this opportunity.

I came away with so much from Raymond, but I'll reserve that for another post.

After meeting with Raymond, we moved on to Tan-Tar-A for group and individual pictures. Paul had traveled to Ecuador with our photographer Linda Nichols, another Rotarian. She also had many stories to share of foreign travel to keep us laughing during our quick photo shoot.

We have one more face-to-face meeting scheduled in February and might squeeze one more in March. And then we're off.

It's starting to get more real.