This morning we had to be up and out of the hostel by 9:30am for our second class at the University of Panamá. I had stayed up late last night finishing my blog post for the day and talking with friends, then had to shower and still get ready for bed. Needless to say, I was pretty tired this morning. A lot of the girls, including myself, were sore from two full days of dancing and a Go! Go! Go! schedule.
So, my ankle looked a lot better this morning, less swollen and only a little bruised. BUT, I woke up to a huge swollen right knee. What the crap, body?! Why are you starting to fail me while I am in Panamá actually doing what I love and making a difference? Just please stop breaking, okay?
Luckily, beautiful Blair was teaching our class and decided to give us a more relaxed and less cardiovascular class by teaching us contact improv. It was two hours of asom broso teaching! Everyone really got into the movement and theory behind it all. I even learned how to lift this huge guy with my back! Woot go me!
After University classes we piled in the bus and got our lunches from Anna (salads and I got a sandwich). Everyone was in a great mood and in higher spirits!
Cool side note, I saw a chapel for our church today. Neat right!
They dropped us two groups off at the hostel and the other two drove to teach at Malambo. I quickly burned a CD for my ballroom music and Anna walked me to pick up Jaimee and Crystal at San Felipe and then we went to meet the boys as Hogar. While we were waiting in the plaza, a huge stormed rolled in. It was gorgeous how quickly the sky changed to a dark grey and how much cooler the air felt. It was wonderful. The girls showed up just in time for us to walk and not get wet!
I worked with the 5 kids for 2 hours practicing our Cha Cha and watching them perform. By the end of the class they could do it pretty well without me. I am so happy for this accomplishment with such young kids, very little time, and barely getting by with my broken Spanish. This is truly a Movement Exchange. When we were done we went up to the top floor of Hogar and performed for all the other boys. They did fabulous!
Sweet Paige, or Página, as we like to call her had brought silly band bracelets as presents for her girls at Malambo and she had three left over that I gave to my girls and a present for working so hard today with me!
The girls don’t have much and when we asked them if they had a dress that they could where for the show, they told Anna that they didn’t have anything like that. I am planning on buying two dresses to give to them for the show as a surprise on Domingo. 🙂
The beauty of Panamá never ceases to amaze me. Not only the landscape and beauty but the hearts of the people and their kindness and love.
We came home and showered to get ready to go out to eat. Amazing enough, the restaurant was one block down the street for us to walk to. It was a very nice restaurant with a fun atmosphere and the waiter was such a charmer. I split cashew chicken with Olive and then got a brownie and ice cream for dessert! So delicious. There was also little s’mores for dessert that came with a personal little grill for your marshmallow! We were running late and ran out fast after paying our bill.
What were we late for, you ask? Dancing With The Stars live finale tapping! It was so awesome because we got tickets from Carina who works with the broadcast and danced as a choreographer in the show! It was fun to see how everything works and cheer for random people we didn’t know while we didn’t know what anyone was saying! Ahhh! Craziness! We just would join in 110% yelling and laughing and booing, basically whatever the people around us did we chimed in too! Poor Paige got hit with the camera flying in and out to video and we photo bombed the winners pictures!
After the show we headed back to the restaurant we ate dinner at for a rooftop after party. What fun to spend a night out like a true Panamania! Staying up late is going to take it’s toll on us so I am gonna head to bed! Goodnight Panamá!
