Playa Blanca, Santa Clara, Panama, January 2020

My time with Tahir, here in Panama is slowly drawing to its end… However it is not quite over yet. We are still here in Playa Blanca, enjoying the long weekend today, and will be here until tomorrow evening.

We then head back to Panama City, and I will start packing for my trip to Ecuador and Bolivia, and Tahir will be slowly getting ready to get back to Canada.

I enjoyed my Christmas and New Year's celebrations this year very much. Getting to know Panama, out of the capital city, together with Tahir, was special.

Panama proves to be a very interesting and a beautiful place, full of charming sites and with friendly people (for those who may have missed the pictures, the gallery from the season can be found at this link).

Now, time to re-start working with a full steam. As I mentioned, I am preparing to travel to Ecuador and Bolivia and then in February to Brazil. While in Ecuador, I will be getting to now our existing programmes, and trying to meet with partners in the country to learn about their preparedness systems to be deployed, when disasters strike. When in Bolivia, on the other hand, we will be assessing the impact of our support to the communities, who suffered from the forestal fires some 4 months ago. The idea is to check on the recovery of the communities, and learn some lessons on what we could do better to prepare for the next fire season… Sadly, it will come again.

When in Brazil, next month, we will be focusing on the well-being of the Venezuelan refugees in the country, and we will try assessing what we could do to support UNHCR, NGOs, and indirectly, the Government of Brazil in their efforts of welcoming the Venezuelans in the country. My job will be to travel around bigger cities of the country (Rio de Janeiro, San Paulo, Recife, and Brasilia, etc.) to discover the needs of the urban refugees, while my colleague will be focusing in the well-being of the refugees in the camps along the border between Venezuela and Brazil in the Amazon Province.

The new updates will come soon, as I visit the above mentioned places.