July 9

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Panama canal, and today we were lucky enough to visit it and see it in action. The two southern-most locks, Pedro Miguel and Miraflores, are right outside Panama City, so we went there first thing in the  morning and got to see a few ships heading in from the Pacific side toward the lake (north) to the Atlantic. Then we had time to watch a movie about the history of the locks, explore the four story museum and check out the souvenirs in the visitor's center.

We then headed west, toward Santiago to meet our host families, but about half way there, we stopped to eat lunch at Santa Clara, a beautiful beach town. The restaurant was right on the beach, and we swam and collected shells and played in the waves. Sometimes the water is pretty rough, but there hasn't been any rain for a month, so the water was very calm. Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely!

So then we headed toward Santiago to meet our hosts. Some of the students were pretty nervous about it- mostly about being able to communicate with them, but I'm confident they all have the skills to figure it out. Plus, how could the host families not love these boys?!?!