Panama Ponderings: Whatever you do, don't forget your towel

I was packing up the last of my things to move out of my host family’s house and into my own rental house, and at the same time pack up my things for a week spent in Panamá City followed by a day at another volunteer’s site, and remembering the few things still hanging out on the clothesline, I thought to myself, “Whatever you do, don’t forget your towel.”

I couldn’t help but smile to myself – a line straight out of Douglas Adams’ A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And fitting: I often feel like a hitchhiker in the galaxy, making it up as I go, not really understanding what is going on all the time, trying to figure all the strange rules and ways of doing things here. But I do try ever so hard to be prepared for all of it. Or at least be patient and flexible.

“Any man that can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

I have certainly had my patience and flexibility tested for the last couple months. November and December are filled with parades and holidays and also are primary months for cacao harvesting, so it is a season of great expense but also great income; mostly it is just very busy, so people are rarely able to keep their commitments to the plans that we make. This had been very frustrating, especially for one who rather likes to plan, who keeps an agenda book, who tries to be reliable.

Equally frustrating is the complete inability to quantify anything. I don’t know if this is a fault of communication or of knowledge or of interest. When I ask for directions somewhere, mostly the response is, “over there.” If I’m lucky, they will even point in the direction with their hands. Mostly, they will just point with their lips. When I ask when something is going to happen, or long it will take, or how long it lasted, responses are usually “in a little bit” or “later” or “a while” or “not very long.” Rarely is there actually a time or a quantity of minutes associated with any time-related questions. When I ask how many times something happens, like, “How often do your kids eat candy?” while I’m doing my surveys, or “How many days were you without water this month?” responses are usually “now and then” or “several.” The best is the circular question about rain:

“How many times were you without water?”

“When it was summer.”

“How long did summer last?”

“While it didn’t rain.”

“How many days did it not rain?”

“Oh, it depends. Sometimes it doesn’t rain for a day, or three days, sometimes for a week, sometimes for a month.”

“So when does summer happen?”

“When it doesn’t rain.”

This difficulty in quantifying things is especially frustrating for an engineer.

I could go on, but instead I’ll just talk about pictures!

The agricultural brigade in the Almirante parade, for the Day of Independence from Colombia – really enjoyed the machete routine they did.

We had a meeting to discuss strengths, opportunities, weakness, and threats in the community – and we did the “human knot” icebreaker – or at least tried really hard to do it.

Went to measure the flow of a few springs with a few different groups to begin exploring the possibility of building aqueducts.

Kittens! The week before I moved out of my host family’s house, the cat decided to have her kittens… on my mattress, the one night that I was in Changuinola for amoebas. I guess that means that I will get to claim one?

“Ngӧbe cookies” – these are “no-bake cookies” – perfect for the campo, because you don’t need an oven! Made with my host family’s home-grown, home-ground, and home-made chocolate, I’ve decided that “no-bake cookies” sounds enough like “Ngӧbe cookies” to make for a good pun. These were my contribution to our Thanksgiving dinner that we held in Panamá City, and they were a huge hit.