trip to David

Tidal Pool Red Frog Beach 8am Sept 25 2010

                                                                                  

Last Monday we left on the 6:30am boat from Red Frog to catch the ferry boat in Bocas, bound for  Almirante on the mainland, and then to hop a bus to the city of David, on the Pacific side of Panama. We were going there to buy  a used truck—a 1994 extended Ford pickup—2 seats in front and big enough to hold another 10 people behind the cab. Steve has been looking around the whole country for a truck for 2 months and this one seemed like the best bet and much more affordable than new. So, we (Steve, I and a mechanic named Lewis) got on the bus, which was packed with adults, kids, babies and 2 chickens. Mind you, this is not a greyhound- there are 15 rows of seats, each about 20 inches wide, 2 on each side and a one foot aisle down the middle with handles along the top for standing passengers, of which there were about 10. Mercifully, I slept for about half of the trip. About 3 hours later, 45 minutes north of David, Lewis whistles to the driver to let us off. We get off the bus and Lewis says, “Ok, we walk down that road about 300 yards and the truck should be there.” Well, other than a gas station, a cowboy roadhouse, and a few houses there is nothing out here – I mean NOTHING!! We walk in the hot sun for about 10 minutes, round a bend, and sure enough, there sitting at the left side of the road is the aforementioned truck. There is a house off the road behind it, no driveway, just a path over a foot bridge going over a stream. No one is home so cell phone to the rescue. Steve calls Miranda back at the project (Miranda is the “everything to everyone” person) to tell her no one is there. She has the guy’s cell phone and two minutes later calls us back and says he is in David buying a part for the truck and will be back in an hour. Right—someone is coming to buy your truck and you are gone when they come?! Well, seeing as it is lunchtime, we walk back to the bar, which is pretty cute—western saddles mounted on top of the bar stools! There is a TV on the wall over the bar playing a B grade American movie with dubbed -over Spanish (Chevy Chase and Sigourney Weaver, 1980s, very big hair, very bad movie) and Panamanian country music blaring over that. Fortunately, it is open air- just a big metal roof, a patchwork tile floor, the bar, some tables and picnic tables.  We finish eating some good comida tipica and Steve and Lewis walk back to the house and white truck. I put my head down and doze for a while, then start reading my book (Peter Mayle, The Vintage Caper). An hour later the sky darkens, so much that I can no longer read, and a downpour ensues. It rains buckets for the next 2 hours. I am wishing for my Bose headphones--the decibels in the place are literally through the roof, between the music, the movie, and the rain pounding on the tin overhead. About 4p a woman, who has just arrived in an SUV, approaches me and tells me in Spanish that Steve sent her to pick me up. We head back to her house, where all 3 guys are huddled over the open hood, all soaked to the gills, trying to install a new belt and thermostat. The woman then drives back down to the gas station to ask if they can bring the truck down there and get out of the rain to finish the truck repair and they say yes so then we all head back down there. I reclaim my spot in the roadhouse and watch the end of the next bad movie (the Harrison Ford and Ann Heche version of Castaway). By 5p we are out of there with significantly fewer bills in our pockets and a new old pickup, with a special ignition system—you have to spray Raid bug spray into the air intake while you turn the key in order to get the engine to fire.  That means you need another person there to start it with you, unless you have arms that are 8 feet long and you can reach under the hood while turning the key. Good deal, huh?  This story illustrates how things often happen here--which could be enough to drive an organized person over the edge. My daily mantras? be in the moment; two steps forward, 1 step back; go with it;  hang loose; embrace chaos; wine can be therapeutic; when in doubt, LAUGH. 

canopy tour

Today I finally went on the Bastimentos Sky Canopy Tour, here at the resort. I was a little bit apprehensive when I lifted my feet off the platform floor and then it was bliss--- the wind in my face, exotic vines and giant tree trunks whizzing by, with the jungle floor several hundred feet below, and then I see the hand signal from the tour guide at the next platform ahead of me to break (pull down with my right arm) and I am there on platform 2. For 2 1/2 hours the 4 of us (my friends Guy, Christy, Sue and I) flew from one platform to the next-- 12 in all. In the middle we did the ropes, the net, floating steps and a tarzan swing, and the final zip was REALLY fun-- letting go with both arms and flying through the air-- like being a kid again. Next, I would like to go in light rain- that would be amazing! I heard the monkeys (white-faced capuchins) but didn't see any. I hear they get used to the canopy tours and then start hanging around close to the zipline trees again.
Tomorrow Steve and I are taking a boat to Almirante, on the mainland, and then a bus over the mountains to David, on the Pacific side of Panama. We are picking up a truck for the canopy tour and also getting gardening and restaurant supplies. Aside from a variety of machetes there isn't much in the way of gardening tools available in Bocastown and my crew needs some good pruning tools as well as protective gear. The terrain is so rugged here that we can't use mowers at all-- have to use weed whackers and if you don't protect the front of your pants you end up with little bits of wet grass and muck stuck all over your clothes. We also want to find a big pressure cooker and a food processor for the restaurant.We will drive the truck back to Almirante on Tuesday and then take a ferry back to Bastimentos with it. We need a truck that is reliable for transporting the canopy tour guests up the rocky hill from the public dock at Red Frog Marina about a mile to the entrance to the canopy tour. This is the first new vehicle purchased here in quite a while and everyone is excited to have a truck that won't need to see the repair shop for a while. We have our own mechanic shop here right next to the big warehouse. We employ 3-4 full-time mechanics fixing all of our construction equipment and miscellaneous vehicles. Vehicle break-downs here are as common as black flies in a Minnesota June and just as annoying. On Friday we had a truck loaded with cement block roll down a hill (was the emergency break really on or did it malfunction?) and turn over into a lowland. Our excavator showed up and one hour later the truck was back up on the road, with a broken windshield but could still start'er up. (The cement blocks still need to be fished out of the water). No one was hurt so just another day in the life here. Every week there are things like that happening and after being here for a few months you finally realize, 'Oh, yeah, dependable transportation is something of a luxury.'
Our own pool, at our house, was finished this past week and we went for our first swim yesterday. Me gusta mucho!

back at the project- September 12, 2010

I have been meaning to start this blog for the last 3 months-- no time like now, as I have a day off (Sunday) and my house is clean and the laundry done (both of which I enjoy doing). The exterminator came the other day so I had some dead bugs to sweep up. Not a huge problem in our house- a few ants and other small bugs. We do have a bat problem though. They like to hang out in the dark in the peak of our porch (and many other porches around here). If they didn't poop up a storm while they were here I really wouldn't mind sharing my porch with them. In the past month I have cleaned up numerous piles of guano--not just at my place but at other houses, seeing as I work in Resort Management (RM). Not pleasant, but I now have a strategy-- my bat poop kit. It contains:
10 small recycled plastic shopping bags, a 2 liter bottle with water and a squirt of disinfectant cleaner in it (Fabuloso lavender, it's the best!), paper towels, a scrap piece of cardboard and a metal pancake turner (yes, for scraping up the poop). I did learn yesterday that bat poop makes great garden fertilizer-we'll see if I ever make use of that knowledge. On Tuesday we are getting a different pest control service and they have a new approach to dealing with bats and I will report back at a later time whether it worked and if I can get rid of my bat poop kit.

Yesterday was intense and hot. I spent a few hours moving furniture up to a new house (I get a crew and they do most of the work). Then I went to our nearby native village- sometimes called Pedro Santo, for the patriarch and landowner, and sometimes called Bahia Roja, not sure why, as there is nothing red around there. The picture above is some of the kids sitting on the steps of their school. This village is a group of 15-20 families and they all live in little shacks on stilts, and have no water other than a quebrada (creek), no sanitation, and no power. (Amazingly, their clothes are as clean as mine- how do they do that?) There are 35 kids of primary school age and the village made their own school of wood and thatch. The federal government provides them with a teacher.  I have been working with a non-profit called Operation Safe Drinking Water ( OSDW-check their website for details). They install water tanks and do first aid clinics in native villages throughout the Bocas del Toro archipelago. Last weekend we installed 2 rainwater catchment tanks at Pedro Santo, one for the school and one for the community.Yesterday 3 of us went back and did a 2 hour health clinic. Friend Maribel, who has been doing these clinics for several years and is from Costa Rica, so has the lingo down, and I  saw about 13 families-- about 40 people. Her husband Joe, founder of OSDW, was there, too. Besides giving health advice and some simple medications and reading glasses, we also smile a lot and tell them to drink lots of clean water. At the very end, after seeing her 4 other kids, a mother brought us her 6 year old girl, who pulled up her shirt and showed us her enormous belly- full of worms. We were out of worm medications, so will transport her to the hospital in town on Monday to get the medicine.

Well, I am about to head out and take a swim and then later we are going to our nieghbors' house for supper. Oh, before I close, I should probably tell you why I named the blog banano. It's for the gigantic banana tree in front of our house, looking toward the beach.

Before I close, I will share my latest cute pic of my dear granddaughter, Addie (Adelaide Campbell Ewald) who is almost 9 months old and full of spit and vinegar, as they used to say.