The office in Ciudad del Saber

A while back (in this post), I described the rather amazing campus of the Ciudad del Saber (City of Knowledge): amazing both for what it is today, but also for its interesting history.  That post showed mostly the outside of buildings on the campus; here's a bit of an inside tour.

Here's the parking-lot entrance to the building that houses the FUNDAPROMAT headquarters.

This is the building where my host's office space is. 
The building includes offices for a number of different organizations, 
including FUNDAPROMAT, Wetlands Preservation, and others.

Guests have to be buzzed in; below is the desk that does the buzzing.  It's on the side of the building that has the parking lot, even though the buildings were designed to have their "main" entrance opposite, on the side that overlooks the park.  We bow to the reality that most people aren't pedestrians.

The desk has the very cool Ciudad del Saber logo behind it.
I like this double swirl!

There have been three different people staffing this desk since I arrived here, and I love them all.  They've been super friendly and welcoming to me!

Just to the right of the desk are the stairs going up.  One thing I think is odd about these stairs is that there's a banister on one side for part of the way up, and a banister on the other side the rest of the way up.  If you're carrying packages and also want to use the handrail, you have to shift the packages midway.  If I were the queen of handrail safety, I'd have railings on both sides for the full length of this stairwell.  

The stairs that lead to the upstairs offices.

At the top of the stairs, there are a few desks out in the open, where anyone could work.

Beyond this desk is the FUNDAPROMAT office. 

Looking straight in this door, you can see the desk I worked at for a while.  The office is kind of tight, so I shared this desk.  It has a nice window!

Here's the desk, full of a combination of my own stuff
and also "checheres" ("thingies") for use in FUNDAPROMAT workshops.

The view out the window shows another building and also a mango tree.
Alas, mangoes are not in season right now.

Downstairs, there's a cafeteria space where people congregate for lunch.  It has an excellent view into the park, (through sliding glass doors just off to the left of the picture below) and a very useable kitchen nook toward the right of this picture.

In the kitchen, there's a great coffee machine.  I love this machine.

The bathrooms come with showers -- I guess that's a relic from this being the site of a former army base.  I've never actually seen anyone take showers here, though.

Still, the combination of showers and coffee machines reminded me early on of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley.  There, visiting mathematicians often went for a run mid day, showered, and then went to great math talks in the afternoons. And of course, we drank coffee all day long.

The printer/copy machine is not quite as good as the ones back on my college campus (sometimes, pages come out streaky), but it's reliable and easy to use.  I don't take this for granted: another Fulbrighter who is connected with the University of Panama has to use print shops for photocopies, paying 20¢ a page.  That's not horrible, but having access to a printer is certainly a privilege I'm grateful for.

This building is incredibly clean, and also incredibly air-conditioned (most of the women who work here, wear heavy sweaters or coats). The space is full of light, and very quiet. I'm very grateful to fund the Pratt for allowing me the chance to work here.