Thursday, September 9, 2010

Cheeseburgers Make Me Smile :)




Well I will start by saying that I had a cheeseburger for lunch today..YES! And it was SO good. But wait, it gets better....I got to have a coke AND oreo cheesecake too!! It's funny that I get excited about those little things here, but it really made my day to FINALLY be satisfied and enjoy what I eat. :)

The past few days haven't been too exciting. A lot of lectures and research talks. We took our final test today HALLELUJAH!! So I am officially done with 5 credit hours of biology! I'm really crossing my fingers for an A but am realistically thinking it may be an A-, we will see! I never had the chance to write in my blog that last sunday two of my friends and I went to a bilingual church right by where we are staying. It was a really cool experience. The service was about two hours long and involved about 40 min of worship, mostly modern songs, the sermon, communion, a testimony, and more music. Everything they said in english was immediately translated to spanish which made things a little choppy but still really neat. There were about 20 people in the small church. The pastor came over and told us there were many different tribes represented in their church. We even saw a few of the Wounaan people that we visited last week! It was really uplifting to see the holy spirit move in a place so far from home. God is SO big and is doing things all over the world!! How great and mighty is He!

Today after the test we went out for a celebration lunch (where I got to have my cheeseburger) and then headed to the Miraflores Locks along the Panama Canal. Our professor had lectured to us the day before about the canal and I thought it would be on the test so I studied it...and it wasn't of course. However, now I know a lot about the Panama Canal!
Here are a few interesting facts:
- The Panama Canal began being built in 1878 by the french and they worked on it for 20 years before abandoning the project. They lost 20,000 men in the process due to tropical diseases and landslides mostly.
- The U.S. took over in 1903 after they helped Panama gain their independence because Columbia, who had control of Panama at the time, would not allow the U.S. to have control of the canal even if they built it.
- We began building and 1904 and eventually finished the project thanks to John Frank Stevens who suggested the locks system instead of moving the canal to sea level.
- In the 1960's the Panamanians began to feel unrest about not having control over the canal and in 1974 Jimmy Carter and the President of Panama made an agreement to share the canal from 1979-1999 until they handed it to Panama completely.
- That is where the canal is now. About 14,000 ships pass through every year. The canal is 50 miles long and takes a ship 8-10 hours to get through. The large ships with containers have to pay $72 per container which can end up to being around $300,000 to get through the locks!
- Panama is widening the locks because ships are getting to large to fit them and are currently working on that project.
We spent a few hours there watching an introductory video, touring the museum, and waiting to watch a boat go through the locks. It was actually a pretty fast process once the boat got there. In the pictures notice how the water level changes.






Tomorrow we are taking a four hour bus tour of the city. I'm not sure if it will be fun or repetitive of what we have already done. Then saturday is our final day in Panama before we head to Nicaragua!! I am really excited to move on to a new country, start a new class, and experience new things. We will be moving around a lot in Nicaragua and I will have spotty internet but will update whenever I can. The first place we are flying into is Managua where we will begin our GHS (global and historical studies) class on frontiers in latin america. This class will be spread out through the rest of the semester. In Nicaragua we will move around to Granada, Matagalpa, Jinotega, Leon, Corn Island, and Bluefields where we will have our home stay and internship. I am so excited for that because I found out that I will be teaching elementary students english for two weeks! I will also be staying with a teacher at the school so that will be an awesome opportunity for me to see what schools are like and expand my knowledge and teaching skills. I can't wait to love on those kiddos. My friends tell me here that I act like a kid sometimes, which is probably due to spending 6 weeks with 8-10 year olds this summer! I miss those precious girls!

As you may have noticed I added some links to other blogs that I enjoy reading. I have become really obsessed while I have been here with reading blogs and finding encouragement through them. There are so many wonderful things to learn and stretch your mind when you can get into other people's heads. If you have some time, check them out! And let me know if you find any that you think I would be interested in! I have also been reading Francine Rivers books while I have been here. She is such an amazing Christian author. If you are looking for a good and convicting read, buy one of her books!

That's all for now. Wishing the best for everyone, you are in my thoughts and prayers. If you have any prayer requests be sure to send them my way! I feel kind of out of the loop in that area.

Love, Shelby

1 comment:

  1. Hahaha isn't it funny how much we appreciate American foods like cheeseburgers after eating in another country? The day I get back into the states I want the cheesiest, yummiest piece of pizza I can find!

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