Hello family, 
The below is an account that I wrote the other day, in my little house. Is 
been a while since I've been to the email cafe. It took me an hour just to 
quickly scan emails and some of moms sites. I brought a disk with me to 
save stuff but now it is full. Updates since the below account. Carnival 
is canceled in Las Tablas so i will not be going there. I will try and 
hitch a ride with the queen of chilibre on their truck/float, through 
chilibre on sat. and Mon. and through Panama city on sun. and Tues. Hope it 
is possible, because that would be a blast. I'm a little bit in equilibrium 
with my garbage company, so I might be starting with some new projects in 
the future. Every time I write I have a new idea of what I will be doing in 
the future, dancing and partying in between. I went to a Congo the other 
day. I don't have the time to describe everything I saw, so try to look up 
what Congo in Colon Panama is, and you will see what I saw that night. It 
stems back from slavery. I will try to give you my account by email or 
snail mail. I hope your not to confused. I'm getting your snail mails and I 
just passed western union for the 100. Thanks. It will be enjoyed. 

Hello family, 
Hope everything is healthy and happy in the Schreiber family, and there is 
no stress. Well at least healthy and happy. I am fine here. One day down, 
the next day up, and another in between. I do know that there is less down 
days as time goes by. I was talking to the family that I rent the house 
from the other day. I said I hear some of the problems that my family is 
having, and I remember having similar problems, but now I don't feel like I 
would be so stressed over them. After saying that, they all said in unison 
"tranquilo". They use tranquilo here allot, and they said that is what I 
have become. It is another way of saying calm, cool, or chilled. The 
stressed out global capitalist economy has invaded Panama (especially Panama 
city), but it has not conquered the Panamanian emphasis on tranquilo. I can 
tell you what has pushed me towards tranquilo. Nothing ever goes as planned 
in Panama. If you are not tranquilo, then you will die from stress. I 
decided to survive. I keep pushing for things to happen with the garbage 
business, but I sometimes feel I am just here to flirt with the Chilibre 
secretaries. In other words, it appears nobody is listening to me. I 
sometimes just completely give up and stand around the Junta Comunal 
flirting or making jokes with the secretaries. Out of nowhere, somebody 
asks for my advise for the business. After had given up, I don't know how 
to respond. I talked to my Peace Corps boss today, and he mentioned the 
possibility of teaching business to kids in a classroom when school starts 
up again. It is summer for the kids here in Panama now. The more I think 
about it, then the more I want to do it. Not only will I have a weekly 
schedule, but I will be given a title: "Professor". Kids have been very 
responsive to me so far, so it may be an excellent thing to do. The other 
project I have not considered is teaching English. For one, it has nothing 
to do with business, and for two, I would not be using Spanish. Although I 
did teach a class for the PC girl that lives near me, and it was rewarding. 
Not to scare you or anything but there is a rat scare in Las Tablas. Las 
Tablas is where I am going for carnival March 3-7th and 7 people have died 
from a mysterious rat bite. Not only that, but the newspaper said that last 
year there were homosexuals pricking people with AIDS infected needles. I 
choose to especially ignore the second part because they were biased by 
stating that only homosexuals were committing this act. Besides this 
newspaper is called The Critica, and it sells its papers by having the last 
days murders pictured on the front page and a naked blond somewhere in the 
middle of the paper. The president of Carnival stated that each year there 
are people trying to destroy Carnival. Vamos a ver (We will see). I will 
be leaving for Carnival on the 3rd, but I will be dancing in the typical 
gringo dance group in Cocle on the 2nd. It is peace corps day and the 
volunteer that lives there has invited many of us to do things in her site. 
I will be dancing. I plan on returning in September, but if John will be 
getting married next December, then I would probably rather wait and save 
vacation days. Do you believe this? I don't want to leave! Maybe I will 
get married, and find a job here never to be seen again. Just kidding. 
Miss you all. The more time I spend here the more I know how valuable are 
next reunion will be. I have all of the pictures sent to me on the wall, 
and the other day I noticed that I am still using dad's green holey airforce 
bag for laundry. I thought that was really cool, and sentimental for me. 
Give me all the latest family drama. Oops, excuse me, I just got done 
killing another giant cockroach. What fun!!! Anyway, tell me what's going 
on in the family - good or bad, because I feel like I am there when you do. 
Love Jim.



_______________________________________________________________________
Mom's response:
Hi Jim, It was great talking to you last night. I don't like more then a week to pass by, 
without hearing from you. Anything can happen in between contacts, 
so when I do hear from you my anxiety levels lower a bit. 
Things are going ok here. Dad coming home on Fridays and leaving Monday mornings.
 It's a bit hard but just this morning I thought about your grandparents both on my side
 and Dad's side. You know his Dad and mine were both nightshift workers.

 That meant they would sleep during the day and go off to work at night.
 Really not much different then the arrangement Dad and I have.
 They (the Dads) would only be seen on the weekends. 
I heard on the news last night that there was another school shooting. 
This time with 6 year olds. Can you believe it? A little boy and girl had a scuffle
 in the school yard and the little boy shouted to the girl " I am going to kill you!" 
Of course, the usual, no one thought anything of it. Well, the next day
 (Feb 29th) the kid comes to school packing a 36, points it at the little girl
 and kills her instantly. It had me in tears (just too close to home) the little girl
 looked a lot like Jamie. If we don't stop with the arbitrarily putting violence all
 over the media and cyberland and stop the proliferation of guns in the homes...
 "suffer the little children" will be more than a biblical verse. Life can sure get you down. 
I thought you weren't going near the "rat zone" now you tell me you are. 
Didn't you say Carnival is being cancelled in that area. I really don't think you
 should take the threat too lightly, just one bite from a rat and it's over... what a way to go.
 Not to mention, how you die from this hantavirus... 
hold on I'm going to do a little surfing to see what I can find on how this sickness progresses.
 HERE IT IS: 
	(incerted webpages here)
	
You see Jim it is not contacted by bites but from rodent droppings, 
which I am sure garbage is loaded with. Please, you don't have to get paranoid but,
 I feel, precautionary measures should be thought about. It's no joke. 
Well after that, there's not much more to be said.... but I'll try. 
Stacey, is looking forward to her computer coming. I sure feel bad that 
I have put another burden on Dad's back, especially since I am not bringing 
any money into the house. I just felt so bad for Stacey, she just is not getting 
any stimulus to her ego. Except, the new manager of K-Mart is a young guy
 (around 30) and quite handsome (according to Stacey).
 He is flirting with her daily, the usual married with kids and hitting that INHAF
 I'm not having any fun) syndrome. It's not much but at least she knows
 she's attractive (it's hard for me to figure it out now, but when you're Stacey's
 age that seems to be important.... I know "been there, done that".)
 Anyway, if she gets into her graphics on the computer it will do a lot more
 for her ego then just knowing you appear as a tasty morsel to the
 male jerks in our society. 
Dad and I had our usual IM this morning. 
Thought you might like to see a typical cyber relationship in the Schreiber household.

(Instant Mail)


Here's something funny. Jamie is in the other room watching
 her commercial station of cartoons... every time a TV ad comes
 on (always directed at the tot market) I hear her say...."I WANT THAT"
 She says it about 3 times every 10 minute interval. 
She sure is becoming a true American. 
Dad is responding to my e-mail of yesterday, I told him of a dream
 I had about Vito and how he wound up living with us 
but in my dream we were back on Devon Court in NJ. 

Dad and I are going to his Jax apartment this week so I can clean
 and re-arrange the rooms. We will probably go to that pizza place I like for dinner...
 you know that one we all went to a couple of times.
 I'll take some pictures of his apartment (after I clean it up)
 and send them to you. Maybe even a few of the Jax sites.
 
Take care I love you, 
Mom