Puerto armuelles

After a week in chame we made it to puerto armuelles! We took an 8 hour bus stopping in David the closest city to us, to catch a smaller bus to puerto. 

We made it to the main grocery store and had to walk down a bumpy dirt road to the Kingdom Hall with our 150 pounds of luggage. That taught us a lesson about overpacking! 

Puerto is a cute little beach town. As soon as we arrived we knew we were going to be happy here.

Since it used to be the main town for Chiquita bananas it has some cool history. There's many old wood houses, and hotels that were for the rich Americans that used to live here. Sadly when Chiquita left the town went down hill and no one took care of the place like Chiquita did. 

We are currently living in one of the old houses 

Lots of maintenance is needed

Here's our room, with pretty wall decorations 

 And a much needed bug net! 

One if my favourite parts about this area is there's lots of cool wildlife, we have parrots that come sit outside our windows, toucans wake us up in the morning. Giant lizards and frogs the size of rabbits surround the house too! You can't be bored around here! 

The beach is one of the best parts of puerto. And you get that nice ocean breeze to cool down. 

There's a nice surfing spot in front of one of our studies home. 

This is puertos famous port where all the Chiquita boats used to come and pick up the bananas. You can't go on it now because its falling apart and is really dangerous. However.... They say if you show up with a fishing rod they will let you through haha. 

You can get all kinds of seafood here. We had barracuda fish and chips with the ward family :) 

You can get any fish you can imagine here. The barracuda we got was 5$

Rita has got a giant lobster for 4$ before. The trick is to go to the fish market early! You can even go help pull in the nets and get a free fish! 

The pineapple is to die for, you can't tell which piece is the core because its so sweet all the way through. 

Papaya isn't my favourite but its fresh off the trees here!

Beer at the bar on the beach is 75 cents a bottle :) a brother took 5 of us out for beers and an appy and it cost him 6$ 

We usually take a taxi for 75 cents each to get around or the bus 

Sometimes though the taxis can look pretty rough... See the hole below? That's the road... Haha

We have pizza and poker nights here with our little group.... Luke has the apron on, he's 15 and makes awesome pizzas from scratch. He even goes as far as making the yeast from scratch. 

Just a few more from our group.

This a little party some sisters had with a few from the surrounding groups and congregations. It feels like one big family here :)

Service here is awesome. It can get really hot during the day but we take much needed coke breaks and have our umbrellas that provide a little bit of shade. 

There's lots of studies here which is so great. We don't even call them rvs here! 

Below is one of Colin's rvs he got I'm the territory. Our first study with him was so cool, he was all ready to go, pre studied, even pre studied all the scriptures! He said he is available to study for 1 hour every Wednesday! He even asked if he could come to the Kingdom Hall. 

His name is Aldino :) 

Here is a cute older brother in service... Check out his hat! :)

Here's a picture of our group and a few visitors, sorry its blurry! Will try and get a better one in the next 8 months were here :) 

The group is really fun, meetings are like a family study :) 

We go to the Spanish on Thursdays to get the parts we can't do as a group like the school and service meeting. The Spanish is really fun too. Eeverytime I try to comment its always me and all the kids with our hands up fighting for the easy comments. Some of the kids even walk up to the front of the Kingdom Hall with their hand up. I'm going to try that next time :) 

This is a close up of brother Fernando, he is so funny and he wears these big headphones up on the stage, it's really hard for me and Colin not to laugh, he's such a cute brother. 

Cute little kids :) 

The heat and the bugs are still a challenge for us here. When we first got here there was ants everywhere including in our bed :( and cockroaches in the kitchen. But with some good ole poison we feel much safer around here, no more ants and only once in a while we will see a creepy roach

But then I get to sit with one of the studies here on her beachfront property and I remember why I'm here :)

Sandy the study that owns the place in the picture above is from California and is an amazing study of Rita's, and I get to study the watchtower with her every Tuesday :) she has been studying for 2 years now and comes to every meeting here. It's really special to see her progress. Even if our little English group brings just her into the truth it would be worth it :) I will get a picture of her next time :)

So far puerto has treated us well! We will post again soon!

Chame, Eh?

Our Panama adventures began with our new friends Pam and Ron Picked us up from the airport in Panama City and took us to Chame which sounds like Cha May to stay with them for our first week in there cute little guest house. 

Going through Panama City

They live on a big piece of property beside a landing strip. Half their house was a hangar for Ron's planes.

They had a horse, cows, chickens, turkeys, dogs, cats and even iguanas that their caretaker Alfredo would eat. 

Lots of bugs, frogs, geckos and bats liked to come around as well. 

This is a necessity...

I found a bat one morning in the door, I wasn't too happy, thank goodness I has Colin to save me!

The heat is a story itself, I have never experienced heat like this. It is as though you are living in a sauna. 30 degrees and 90 percent humidity is winter to these people!  You can't have too many showers a day. We felt like slugs and would only want to sit in front of a fan all day. Thank goodness they had air conditioning in the bedroom so we could get some sleep at night. 

This is how hot it gets haha

Since this is the rainy season we have already had some awesome storms, lightening lighting up the whole house blue and thunder so loud the windows would shake. The torrential downpours and wind may seem like a bummer to you but for us it was total relief. We have never been so grateful for rain. 

Not only does it cool things down but it makes everything so lush and beautiful. It's really tropical here. 

We got to visit Punta Chame, a cute little beach area which unfortunately had a lots of garbage littered on the beach, they apparently only clean up when they know tourists are arriving. We came unexpected I guess. 

We went to a cute little town called El Valle. There is no garbage on the streets and it is very clean. It is on a crater so we went to some hot springs and had a mud bath...brown warm water that is good for you...tourist trap? Well We fell for it!  

We tried service in both Spanish and English. Spanish of course is so refreshing because everyone has such respect and love for what the bible has to say and for God. Jehovah's name is used a lot here which is really cool. Every few houses someone invites you in or to sit with them to have us teach them something from the bible. One girl had the new world translation already and said it was a gift from her boyfriend haha. 

The one day in English was a bit tougher, we went to the main malls and looked for white people. They were friendly of course, most from the states but of course had the same responses as back home. We were a little bit disappointed at first but then we found out that there are lots of Panamanians that speaks English fluently and will study the bible.

 Cute little guy out in service. He knows   his numbers and colors in English :) 

Chame was good start and we got to know Pam who has travelled the world and has amazing experiences to share. She treated us like family and got us ready for panama. We were ready though for puerto armuelles