A trip to the doctors, a trip to the beach, and a trip to the British Embassy.

 Here is a little montage of some of the things I have been up to so far...

 The school so far, although it already looks completely different inside, after just a week and a half.

 The view from the playground.

 Millefiore lock, Panama Canal

 Mind your step, Matey.

 I wish I could understand Spanish.

 The teachers- Shan, John, Ben, Michelle, Ali and Amy.

 Already celebs- front page of the Panamanian bilingual newspaper.  They'll be digging up my past life stories next.  Try to keep strong and not sell your stories about me for millions.

 View from the big hill near the city.

And now to update you since my last email...

It has been a busy week and three quarters.  The main highlights included the full medical, which we had to have for school.  We had already had one of these at a private clinic, which involved tapping of the tummy, and tapping of the shins, and tapping of the neck.  When told that we needed to go to the local surgery on the edge of the rainforest I assumed it would be something similar.  However at just after 7am, on Thursday morning we arrived at the corrugated iron roof topped surgery armed with our carefully collected poo samples, and our equally carefully collected wee samples.  We then had to wait in a first come, first served queue, before we got to line these samples up on the doctor's shelf, for all of our viewing pleasure.  The waiting time, however, did give us chance to survey the local criminals, brought in in handcuffs by the armed police men.  The main embarrassment was not the revealing of the poo and wee samples, but my tears at the blood test.  On seeing my tears the doctor asked how old I was.  I politely sobbed that I was now twenty seven.

Sadly I do no have a picture of the surgery.  But please contact me if you need me to create a more vivid picture.


On Saturday we went to Casco Viejo.  The old town of Panama City.

Here is a picture of one of the crumbling buildings.  They are trying to do them all up, but they look a bit polished.  The old ones are the nicest, with lots of character.  Although many are now just a facade.

Here is a picture of the San Jose church golden altar...

There is a story behind this.  Many hundreds of years ago, I can't remember when, a nasty pirate came to the church in search of its famous golden altar, as he wanted it for himself.  The priest, on hearing a notorious pirate was coming a plundering, quickly set to work and covered the golden altar in soot.  When the pirate arrived and demanded the altar, the priest lamented that alas, it had already been stolen.  He then proceeded to twist the ferocious pirate's arm, into donating some money to help the church replace the 'stolen' altar.  The pirate did so but exclaimed to the priest that he rather felt the priest was more of a pirate than him.  Although he couldn't quite put his finger on why.  The End.

Here you can see the backs of Ben, Shan, Ali and Amy's heads, in that order.  You can also see how some of the houses have been done up.

Now I shall tell you about the beach.  We drove for about an hour and twenty minutes to a beach on the Pacific side of Panama.  This is what we saw when we arrived...

And here are a couple more photos that serve no purpose...

 Look at the black glittery sand!  I did go in the sea, and then roll in the sand so that I would look really cool, like JLo or something, but sadly I don't have a photo of that.  But I might be able to get hold of one from someone else.  I looked a terrific sight, as I'm sure you can imagine.

The sea was hot, and the sand was hot and the air was hot.  It was bloomin' marvellous.

Now for the bit you've all been waiting for...

The special drinks reception and canapés to welcome the new King's College teachers to Panama, at the British Embassy residence, by the ambassador himself.  

And what an evening it was.  The house is beautiful, and enormous, with it's own personal security.  Beautiful artwork everywhere, and a sort of huge courtyard with loads of trees surrounding it and a lovely jagged shaped pool.  There was a special canopy area with a bar serving us drinks and people coming around with canapés, like sausages on sticks.  And Panamanian jazz musicians played for us as we schmoozed.  Guests included others who are working on the school, and also people from the Embassy- a mixture of British and Panamanians. It was a really fun evening, and naturally the ambassador wanted to chew my ear off about what I thought about Panama and the direction it should head in, but there was a lot of people vying for my time, so I had to keep it fairly short and sweet.  Of course on greeting him, I presented him with a box of Ferrero Rochers on behalf of the teachers, and told him that I heard ambassadors like these.  Then under my breath I added that I hope he spoils us.  Which he did, as it turned out.  He was also very pleased with the Ferrero Rochers.  Too pleased I noticed, as there didn't seem to be much sharing of them going on, despite him saying that he would bring them out on a plate later...  Not really promoting British values, but I can always give him a little guidance the next time we meet- he did say as we left that we were always welcome.  And actually I wouldn't mind taking advantage of that pool.

 I chose to wear a cape to meet the ambassador, and accessorised with the Sun.

 Schmoozing.

 Paparazzi shot with Amy.

And here with Amy and Ali.

Well done for reading this far.  I have waffled on an awful lot, but the next one will be shorter.  At least I'll try and make it shorter.  Hopefully I'll have some snaps of my new flat to put up and my classroom.

Love to you all. Rx