International Surfing Competition

This past weekend I accompanied a coworker to check out the World Masters Surfing Competition that is being held in Panama on the beaches of Santa Catalina which is about five hours away from the city. While in the countryside we crashed at the coworker´s family´s house which is in a nearby little town (the primary school for the town has 15 students). Being in such a small town meant that we spent a lot of time on the front porch when not checking out the competition. We saw a heated argument at neighbor´s house for which the police were called and a mini parade (the third annual parade of the local fish market) that consisted of 12 cars following each other honking their horns, one of which had a scantily clad dancer standing on top of it.

Saturday was the flag ceremony for the surfing competition which was held in the town square of a nearby town. Being in Latin America the event started late and was a little confused, during the opening parade the paraders went along the right side, the left side and through the town square to get to the final destination. Also on Saturday evening was a party at the beach sponsored by the surfing organization which was fun.

On Sunday we watched the surfers compete. They competed in 20 minute matches with four surfers partaking in each match. When you think international surfing competition you think big waves but actually the waves were not all that big (not much bigger then the ones I was learning on in CR). But despite that the surfers were able to make mad moves on them (while I in CR could barely stand up), it was impressive. But the competition meant that even though we were on a hot beach we couldn't go into the water to chill off.

At the office work has been still a little slow, but I've working on a report on the country's national internet project. I also had the opportunity to check out some field work in the countryside.

The other day I also a group of people around some domino tables with money changing hands. I'd never seen a competitive dominoes match before.