Son of a Bitcho

I never have enough time for internet, so posts may become a little less frequent than I would like. Time is passing quickly enough in site and I now have been in site for a month and a half.
Life here is as past volunteers have said, a bit manic. Everyday is a emotional roller coaster and one moment I am happy to have received an invitation or friendly smile, while another moment I am down in the dumps about a less-than-friendly reception. Several times a day it hits me that I have roughly two years left and a knot forms in my stomach. But it helps keeping in touch with people and I know that eventually I will have projects in full-gear to distract me.

As far as adventures, I can now say I have killed a snake with a machete. I was visiting a family´s house when the mother called for a machete. I assumed a scorpion was in the kitchen (I almost always assume this as I have developed quite the phobia) but it was actually a tiny snake. Tiny, but poisonous. It´s called a vivora, and it is a general class of snakes that have the triangular viper-type heads. I ended up sweeping it outside and hacking it into two because the women just jabbed it in the head and it was obviously suffering. The family was taken aback by the force I used when killing it, and the ease with which I performed the task. I felt bad about it, but it was going to die anyways, and I figured I could ease the suffering. (I will never, however, kill chickens!) That day I also caught and freed several toads from their house (every one of which peed all over me in the process, a defense mechanism). They would call me in when they spotted a toad and were quite amused that I didn´t fear touching the toads as they are sometimes "poisonous." Panamanians, especially the women, fear all living things- even harmless ones like newts. Everything to them is "poisonous" and therefore fair game for a machete.
The scorpion war continues and I caught my host family trying to kill one without my finding out. The visiting niece came into retrieve the machete and when I questioned her she responded, "nada." Mentirosa! (liar!) I called her on it (because no one carries a machete inside the house unless they are trying to kill some unwanted pest) and sure enough I found people staring at a scorpion on the wall. They laughed when they saw how I figured it out because now I am just a source of amusement to them when it comes to scorpions. My new swear word is "son of bitcho!" because no one has any idea what I mean. Bitcho is the word for pests and insects, and I enjoy usuing an expression I mean as a vulgarity but can never be called-out on.
I rode a horse to a neighboring community one day and it ended up being over four hours on horseback. The return portion was during a rainstorm too I may mention. At times the horse began to gallop and I was certain I would fall off. It didn´t help matters that were were (as I soon found out) going to clean the grave of the family´s father- who died from falling off a horse. But it was fun and very surreal, and most definitely worth the incredible pain of the following two days. I felt like a "vieja" (old woman) and barely left the house.

I miss California and what I left behind. It´s hard to move forward when you´re focused on what´s behind you; therefore I am trying to be more future-oriented.