30 minutes

Okay, I only have 30 minutes before my bus leaves Chorrera and goes back to Santa Clara, so I will try to be quick. We just returned from our first on-site vist. Originally I was supposed to go by myself, but unfortunately another PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) got sick and had to be taken to the hospital in David (a big city in Panama). So....another aspirante (we´re called aspirantes until we actually swear in as PCV´s) named Jack had to come with me because his host was in the hospital. As it turns out another aspirante was also hospitalized in David after having some not so clean water..or something like that. But forget about all that. I had a great time staying with my host volunteers Kate and Bracken and enjoying the town of Vallerequito outside of the provincial capital of Las Tablas. There's actually a town called Vallerico which stands for Rich Valley before you get to Valleriquito which means Little Rich Valley. And what a view! Beautiful green mountains all around and the people were hilarious. We spent most of our time making fun of everyone. What I mean to say is that the locals made fun of us and we made fun of them and we all had a grand ol time. What makes Valleriquito so unique is that many moons ago a large company was paying the local farmers a certain amount for their milk. However, this amount would fluctuate frequently depending on market conditions and so forth. They also decided that Valleriquito didn´t produce enough milk in the summer months (when there´s no rain) to purchase any milk at all. So.....the local farmers created a group-about 17 or 18 and decided to create a cheese factory even though they knew nothing about cheese. A PCV about 17 years ago helped them to get started and now it´s up and running and earning money and is a great success story for the people of Valleriquito. The farmers get a fixed price per liter of milk that they bring in every single morning and the Quesarilla (Cheese factory) makes fresh cheese every day. They employ about 4 women in the town  who come in every morning, clean everything, measure how much milk each farmer has brought in and records it in a notebook - and one of the farmers oversees the operation. It was really cool to see how a PCV 17 years ago helped start something that is providing jobs for so many people. Not only jobs, but a sense of accomplishment, ownership and pride. It was truly awesome. And of course all the farmers coming in made fun of me for taking pictures of them riding in on their horses and unloading the milk. They actually have a nickname for Bracken-the PCV living in the village. They call him Pollo Americano, which is American Chicken. He´s actually trying to obtain a laptop or computer for the factory because they have 17 years worth of information, but it´s all handwritten in notebooks. If they had a laptop they could enter in all that information to have a better picure of their business operations. Right now they sell cheese as far away as Panama City which is about 5 hours away. Pretty impressive for a little town in the mountains. They are also selling all they cheese they´re making. Right now they´re not looking to expand, but there is definitely potential in the future which is exciting to see. Well that´s all I have time for now, but I´ll try to post more later. Chau!