Monday marked our first day of work at the Panama Canal Authority, the Authoridad del Canal de Panama en espanol, otherwise known as the ACP. We were picked up at 9 am by our driver and sat in about 20 minutes of traffic to get to the Head Administrative building for our 9:30 call time. At that building we were graciously greeted by a member of Human Resources and we had to fill out a bunch of forms and waivers and such. Sorry mom and dad, but if I die at work, you can't sue the country of Panama or the ACP. Then we were sent to a different building to have our ID photos taken. We should hopefully be getting our IDs on Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest.
Then, we waited in the ID office for a gentleman named Roy who was going to pick us up and drive us over to the campus that we would be working on. Roy came to pick us up with another gentleman named Urho, who we later learned would be advising our projects. They drove us from the Administrative Building over to the campus we were working on. We had to present out "Memorando" to the guards since we don't have IDs yet. Security at the ACP is VERY tight. It was actually quite intimidating. They drove us to our building, Building 706 which houses some of the Environmental Division. We met in the conference room with Roy and Urho and they gave us an orientation. The orientation was a general mission and goals presentation about the Panama Canal and the ACP as they are ISO 14001 certified. Then Urho explained a little bit about our projects. Cindy and I are working on a conceptual design and a feasibility anaylsis of installing a third raw water line from the Paraiso pumping station to the Miraflores potable water treatment plant. Mario and Keith are working on a chilled water line that will then be sold for use with air-conditioning.
Then Urho gave us a quick tour of the building. It is rather small. He showed us where the kitchen was and the showed us to our cubicle. The four of us are sharing one VERY large cubicle and we each have our own desk and computer and there are two whiteboards in there for us to use. We are pretty excited about the accomodations. We were unable to use our computers that day because we don't have user logins yet. We were told this could take 2-3 days as they process our security clearance, etc. For the rest of the day, we brainstormed, came up with questions for Urho and learned some basic Spanish from Edwin.
After work, we went home to change out of our clothes. We got an email from Mercedes, who had arranged our housing, and she offered to take us out to dinner. We decided to go to the mall (MultiCentro) before dinner because there was suppose to be a grocery store there and we had forgotten a few things from the last time we were at the store. We wondered around the mall for a while and went into a Conway, which is just like a Sears. HOLY CHRISTMAS. The entire 3rd floor of the store was decked out with more Christmas stuff then the North Pole... We quickly retreated as it doesn't feel like Christmas when it is 95 F outside and like 200% humidity :p
We got a text from Mercedes saying that she couldn't make it so we decided to just eat dinner in the mall food court. Keith and Mario ordered Chinese food. Cindy and I tried to order food that was served in a skillet thingy. We attempted to order with pictures and then we wanted fried plantains. We got two sides each so we got 4 different things. I did not get the entree that I wanted and neither of us got fried plantains... It was still good though :)
Then, we went to Edwin's hotel and had some drinks and sat in the rooftop jacuzzi. Then we went downstairs to the sushi bar and had a few more drinks and some sushi for Edwin's final send off. His flight was first thing Tuesday morning. We will certainly miss him because he was amazingly helpful!
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