Ignorance, they say, is bliss. There are certain times it’s better not to know some things.
For instance, yesterday two men were working to clear out the weed-clogged field next door so that it could be planted with corn. They worked for about six hours and during that time they killed two small fer de lance snakes.
The fer de lance is one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. If there were two next door you can be sure there are a lot more around. Sometimes there are things I’d just rather not know about.
Living, as it were, in a total-immersion language learning situation it finally happened. In the last week I’ve started having dreams in Spanish. I don’t mean that ALL my dreams are in Spanish, but when I have one that’s located here in Panama the dream language is Spanish.
I remember the first time I had a dream in French. It woke me up. It was a “WOW” moment. When you start dreaming in another language you know that it has become a part of your subconscious.
It’s no secret that I love my neighbors here in Boquerón, and I feel their love in return. They’re always bringing me things to eat. I’ve had some fantastic homemade tamales that can’t be beat. During mango season I was deluged with the things, and there was a bumper crop this year. Nearly every day when the avocados were in season one or another of my neighbors would bring me some. I got guacamoled out. Recently I wrote about the pibá. Today I was given a large “pipa” (pea pah). That’s a young coconut filled with delicious, refreshing and healthy coconut water.
There’s a coconut palm in my back yard that has a lot of nuts growing but they’re not ready to be picked yet. Just on the other side of the front fence, in my neighbor’s yard is a huge palm…
It’s at least 60 feet tall. (I measured it by visualizing the 65′ Hatteras I used to run in New Orleans standing on end against the tree) From time to time while sitting out on the front porch puffing one of my stogies I hear a loud thump as one of the nuts falls to the ground.
Yesterday my neighbor brought me one. It was filled with enough water to fill a large glass. The water is not only refreshing, but it’s loaded with potassium and antioxidants. With the water transferred to the glass my neighbor cut the nut open reveling the soft, sweet “pudding” inside.
According to Wikipedia, unless the coconut has been damaged the water is sterile and it has been used as an intravenous hydration fluid in some developing countries where medical saline was unavailable.
While Boquete is touted by many publications as one of the best places outside of the U.S. in which to retire, I try to avoid what many of the locals call “Gringolandia” and which I refer to as the “Gringo Ghetto” preferring to live among the natives, like a native. Living as I do certainly has its advantages. I can’t imagine the gringos in Boquete receiving the treats I get from the locals, though I may be wrong in some instances.
I’ve written quite a bit, with videos, about the rainy season in Panama. The “dry” season in Panama runs roughly from the end of November through April and does not lend itself to good video opportunities. Sort of on a par with taking an action picture of a rock.
It’s hard to say if this has been a typical dry season or not since I haven’t lived here long enough to have developed a meteorological memory bank. The river that runs past the house has been little more than a winding rock pile for months.
We’ve been several months without a drop of rain. Full-blown drought conditions. Diary farmers in the district of Macaracas are experiencing serious difficulties. This dry season has resulted in a 25% decline in production. The most critical areas are the districts of El Cedro and Corozal, where 80% of surface water sources have dried up and the grass is low. Serious, large-scale brush fires have been reported throughout the country as a result of the tinder-dry conditions.
When I’d leave the house to go catch a bus into David I’d crunch across the straw-colored front yard. Here and there were tiny tufts of green but easily 90% was as dry as dust. But the yards around here aren’t sodded plots. They’re covered by indigenous plant life. Stuff that has survived these conditions for millennia. So not everything is brown.
The trees have remained green, but look at the ground beneath them. (Sorry, the color of the pictures is horrible. I think I damaged my still camera when I was documenting the final sunrises in Potrerillos Arriba and I’m now using my video camera’s still photo mode.)
April is fast approaching and the weather pattern here in Chiriquí Province has been changing. It started about a month ago. I woke up one morning to find it raining quite hard and it continued into the early afternoon. This was unusual because during the rainy season the wet stuff generally comes in the middle of the afternoon. It’s rare to find it raining in the mornings. But that was just a tease. We didn’t get any more rain for days afterwards. Clouds would build up in the afternoon and it looked like it was about to rain but nothing came of it. Then it started last Thursday and we’ve had rain every afternoon since then. Right now it’s quite gloomy and I can hear thunder from all points of the compass.
The newly arrived rains haven’t changed the river yet as you can see from the photo above. The ground’s too dry for that. La tierra is thirsty and drinking up the rain as it falls. In a couple of months, when the ground is thouroughly saturated it will run off and the rivers will rise again.
The rain, though, has had a profound effect on the grasses. With just a couple of successive days of rain green patches are springing up where it had been brown.
There are four treelings? Treelets? Saplings? in the back yard. I watered them nearly every day, but one seems to have succumbed.
I have no idea what kind of a tree it is supposed to be. The leaves seem to be that of a mango. But the mangoes in the neighborhood are thriving and loaded with an abundance of green fruits now. I’ve not given up hope. The leaves, while they are a dreadful brown, have remained supple and pliant. Hopefully it’s simply resting and not like this…
I have sort of an open door policy here for certain creatures. There are a couple of common house geckos that live with me and in peaceful co-existence with some anole chameleons . I don’t know if that violates the “no pets” policy of my lease but they’re harmless, cute, funny, don’t crawl over me in the dark and they eat insects so they’re welcome.
There is also a small, brown bird about the size of those colorful finches you see for sale in pet stores. In the mornings I usually have the front and back doors of the house open allowing for wonderful cross ventilation. I’ve seen this little wren, for lack of a better or more accurate ornithological classification, come into the kitchen from time to time either out of curiosity or looking for something to eat. Once or twice I actually saw the bird grab an insect and fly back out the door.
Recently, though, I’ve heard squawking noises out back and discovered that, hidden away in one of the metal beams that supports the second story back porch, is a tiny nest of which the little wren is the major-domo. From first light until dark the little bird works tirelessly collecting bugs and bringing them to her brood. I’m not sure whether she’s a single mom or if pop has stuck around to help but not more than a minute passes between one feeding and the next. If it’s just mom then she’s a real work horse. If pop’s around they’re a good team.
In the last couple of days the squawks have become louder and more persistent. I sat out on the steps leading to the second floor and finally caught the little wren with a large bug in her mouth and found where the nest is. Today I was able to capture several short videos of this feeding frenzy. And at the last minute after each feeding one of the trio of chicks turns around, presents it’s hind quarters to mom or dad and defecates and the fecal matter is taken off somewhere. Disgusting, to be sure, but can you imagine how befouled the nest would be if this wasn’t done?
Next to man-made fireworks I like celestial ones, too. Early this morning (Jan 4) there was supposed to be a super meteor shower from 2 a.m. on. The Quadrantids shower was hyped up to have upwards of 80 to 100 “shooting stars” per hour. I set my alarm for 2:30 hoping to see some pyrotechnics to possibly rival what the locals put up on Christmas and New Years Eves. Well, it was a washout here, if, indeed, anyone could have seen them in Panama to begin with. It was heavily overcast with clouds and only three or four stars were visible through tiny holes in the sky. Oh, well.
I’ve seen one before. Often when I tell people about my single-handed cruise on my beloved “Nancy Dawson” back in 1992 people ask, “Don’t you wish you’d had someone with you?” Well, the answer, for the most part is “Not always, but there were some events it would have been nice to share with someone.”
One of those times was when I was anchored out off the tiny island of Ranguana Caye at the edge of the reef in Belize. It was a lovely, isolated spot and everything a tropical islet is supposed to be. Small, at the edge of a coral barrier reef with a long line of breaking surf off to seaward, and covered with dozens of coconut palms. I was anchored in about 7 feet of crystal clear water on the leeward side of the island. A gentleman I’d met in the small town of Placencia owned the island and was building three tiny cabins that he hoped would earn him his fortune renting them out to dive tourists. He and a couple of helpers would come out during the week to work on the cabins but most of the week I spent there I was by myself.
One night I was lying out in my hammock that I’d strung up between the mast and the fore stay. I had finished off the last of a righteous bud I’d bought a week before from “Dancing Sam the Rasta Man” who had a small house beside the town’s famous “sidewalk.” I reclined there in my hammock miles and miles from the nearest artificial light. There was no moon, even. Just this wonderful canopy of a gajillion stars in the sky above. Marcia Ball, Doctor John and the Neville Brothers drifted up from the boom box in the cabin below.
And then the light show began, as if just for me. It was early August and the earth was moving through the Perseids belt. Shooting stars blazed all across the sky. For the next couple of hours not a minute went by without at least two or three and often dozens of meteor trails shooting across the heavens. And when I’d look over the side of the boat long luminescent trails ran in all directions as medium-sized fish chased little fish and big fish chased the medium-sized ones all intent on a fresh sushi night cap. THAT’S when I wish I’d had someone along to share the moment with.
As my regular readers know, I live in the small pueblo of Boquerón, Panama, in Chiriqui Province west of the country’s third largest city, David. I rent a house in a middle-class neighborhood where my neighbors are mono-lingual. They all speak nothing but Spanish. When I first moved in and I’d see them on my walks to the bus stop we’d exchange the normal greeting of “Buenos Dias,” or “Hola.” But recently I’ve noticed that almost all of them have stopped saying that and they say, “Hello,” instead. I can’t quite put my finger on when I first became aware of this change, but I find it rather amusing. I still answer them with the traditional “Buenos, como esta?” though, and if I stop to chat it is always in Spanish, of course.
I LOVE fireworks. Who doesn’t? Well, my old dog, Penny. Just ask her. You like fireworks, girl?
I guess not.
I’ve seen some pretty good fireworks in my time. Of course the ones when you’re a kid are always spectacular since they’re such a new experience. As you grow older they have to get better. In the States, of course, most fireworks are professionally done. Oh, there are firecrackers. Cherry bombs and M-80s were wonderful when we could get them since they were illegal and cost most of a week’s allowance. But what fun!
Fireworks are a big part of celebrations in New Orleans. I remember one New Year’s Eve out at a girlfriend’s house in Metaire the whole neighborhood was setting off fireworks and the smoke was actually so thick it was like a fog between the houses. And when the World Fair was running in New Orleans they closed each night with a fireworks display. Most evenings I’d go sit out on the glider swing in the back yard and watch them light up the sky over the “Moon Walk” down by the French Quarter.
The Bi-Centennial display in Chicago in 1976 was pretty impressive. I was running a 300-passenger sight seeing boat seen here on the cover of a Chicago Yellow Pages.
Of course I had to work that night and we had the boat filled to capacity but it was still fun watching them from the water.
Without a doubt the best fireworks display I EVER saw was in Cannes, France, for their Bi-Centennial Bastille Day celebration. The fireworks were set off from three different locations: a barge moored out in the bay, one on a hillside to the west of the town and one from a hillside behind the town. When the displays went off overhead from the three locations at the same time it gave one a sensation of vertigo. And the whole thing was done synchronized to music. They’re big on that in France. Every year during the month of August there is an international fireworks competition in the village of Juan les Pins, adjacent to Antibes, and those displays are also choreographed to music.
Here in Panama fireworks are a big part of the Christmas Eve celebration. Why? I have no idea. But there are fireworks stands all over the area. The other day I went to the Chiriqui Mall and a huge, inflatable tent had been set up out front selling KaBoom “Fuegos Articifiales.”
For the past week kids in the neighborhood have been setting off firecrackers every now and them Some were definitely in the cherry bomb and M-80 category. LOUD. Then, last night things began to heat up. Sitting on my front porch you could hear firecrackers going off all around. Just listen to this. There’s no picture, but you can hear the noise. It must have sounded a little like this at the start of the “shock and awe” part of the invasion of Iraq.
That went on non-stop for well over an hour.
Now, my neighborhood is solidly middle class. There are no McMansions here. Only 25% of the families own a car. These are either retired Panamanians or solid working folks. What happened at midnight I can only speculate on how they were able to afford such a display. I suspect that the different families might have pooled their money to be able to afford what went on for a good 15 to 20 minutes non-stop. This is just a glimpse.
I thought it was quite impressive considering it was entirely funded out of the neighbors own pockets.
Well, it’s that time of year again, and I’m not talking about the Republican Presidential Primary Debates. I’m talking about Hanukwanzmas. That time when people of good will make fun of each other’s traditions. For example Sarah (The Queen of the I-Quitarod) Palin AND Faux Gnus have been criticizing President Obama’s family Christmas card this year.
Palin told Fox News that she found it “odd” that the card emphasizes the dog instead of traditions like “family, faith and freedom.” She also said that Americans are able to appreciate “American foundational values illustrated and displayed on Christmas cards and on a Christmas tree.”
Of course the fact that NO president in the past century has used the word “Christmas” matters not one whit to the true-believer Tali-Christian. Palin sees the season like this:
I hope John McCain realizes that there is a new and special layer of hell set up just for him for unleashing this woman on an unsuspecting American populace. (It’s one level higher than where Five Deferment Dick Cheny is going to spend eternity being water-boarded even after realizing that it IS torture.) Anyway, when is this woman’s fifteen minutes going to be up?
I actually like the Hanukwanzmas season except for one thing. I loathe and despise the piped-in Muzak Hanukwanzmas songs that it is impossible to escape from every time you enter a store or public building like an airport terminal. When I’m in charge of everything things are going to change drastically. Piped-in Hanukwanzmas music will only be allowed to be played from 6 p.m. until midnight Hanukwanzmas Eve. Anyone violating this rule will be eviscerated and their innards will be used to decorate the Hanukwanzmas tree in Rockefeller Center like tinsel garlands.Yesterday, Tuesday, December 20th, I went into the El Rey supermarket in David to pay my light bill and was aurally assaulted by “Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer,” in ENGLISH no less. Can you imagine the uproar that would be heard around the redneck states back in the Great White North if they played Christmas Songs in Spanish? Thankfully I haven’t heard “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” or any of the Alvin and the Chipmunk songs down here.
No, I’m NOT a Grinch. I think Hanukwanzmas is the greatest thing for kids EVER. In fact, when I’m in charge of everything it will be against the law to tell anyone under 21 the truth about Santa Clause, Papa Noel, Father Christmas. At 21 a person can legally purchase alcohol to soothe the horrible loss of innocence the news will bring. Younger than 21 is just too cruel to contemplate.
When I got on the bus to return home yesterday an old man got on board with a small, pink, two-wheel bicycle for his grand daughter. I HOPE it was his grand daughter because if it was for his grandson there are going to be some real serious identity issues coming to the fore later in life. I looked at the bike with the usual jaundiced Gringo eye and saw what it was. A poorly-made piece of Chinese crap that will be lucky to make it through the first week before the plastic training wheels disintegrate. But that was my initial reaction. And then I realized the truth about what that bike really meant to him and what it will to the loved one he gives it to. In a country where the national minimum wage is a little less than $400 that bike took a huge chunk out of that man’s pocket. One could tell he didn’t have much to begin with just by looking at his clothes. But that little girl is going to feel like a princess when she unwraps it Christmas morning. Her FIRST bike and her “abuelo” gave it to her. He will be the brightest star in her firmament forever. It’s a crying shame that EVERY kid can’t feel like that this Sunday.
While I DO hate the piped-in Muzak version of Hanukwanzmas songs I’m NOT opposed to the following. It was turning dark when this group of kids from a local Methodist church came in to my yard. I know the vids are dark but when the sun sets here this close to the equator there’s no real twilight. It’s light, the sun sets and then it’s DARK! I used the night setting on the camera and a little clip-on light. As the kids come into the yard you will hear someone say, “Parada!” That’s the Spanish word for “Stop.” My hand appears when I waved back at the little girl with the Santa hat on the right.
Here’s wishing everyone a very Merry Hanukwanzmas and a fantastic new year.
Water is weird here in Panama. Right now it’s coming out of the sky but not out of the faucet.
There are often times when there is no tap water. Don Ray, who writes the Chiriqui Chatter blog lives in the City of David (Panama’s third largest metropolis which is strange if you think of a place with only four stop lights as a metropolis) often writes that he has no water from his taps. Sometimes it’s for days at a time.
After the recent devastating river flooding that took out one of the bridges on the Interamerican highway there was no water here in Boquerón for several days though, fortunately I was still in Potrerillos Arriba then and never had a moment without water. Often after a heavy downpour water service is cut off because the turbidity in the rivers where IDAAN, the water company, draws its supply from, clogs the filters.
In Panama City, referred to simply as Panamá, where almost half of the entire country’s population reside they’re building a subway system and a couple of weeks ago it was necessary to shut off the city’s entire water supply for a whole weekend to reroute the water around the tunnel. Can you imagine what the outcry would be like in the States if everyone’s water was shut off for a couple of days in a city of a million and a half residents? Heads would roll.
But here people just shrug their shoulders and get on with their lives. If they were French they’d shrug their shoulders, make a “poof” sound through their lips and say “c’est la vie, hein?” (If you think English is a strange language because of its non-phonetic spelling, try French. Hein is pronounced “eh?” Go figure.) I don’t think there’s a Spanish phrase that expresses the same feeling as that one does.
Since water outages are a common, though thankfully not a daily, occurrence there is a good market for large plastic water tanks here. And I mean LARGE. In some cases several hundred gallon tanks. Most of them are black or bright blue and just sitting here I can think of at least four stores in an around David that stock the things along with pumps to feed the water into houses. We don’t have one of those here at this house though there has been talk of getting one. Instead I have three five-gallon pails that I keep filled with water for those times when there is no tap water. Most of the time I just keep them under the roof line and collect rain water in them. I don’t drink it, but use it for other things like flushing the toilet or washing dishes and clothes. I’ll be doing a post about laundry sometime soon.
For drinking water I have a five-gallon cooler thingy that I keep topped off with filtered water that I collect from the faucet when there is tap water, and I have a two-gallon jug of filtered water in the fridge.
When I was over visiting in Bocas del Toro I noticed that many of the houses not only had a big water tank but they had fitted out their roofs with large-diameter PVC pipes where rain gutters would normally be so they could collect and store rain water. Made a lot of sense to me.
Here in my neighborhood where the water supply through the tap is often just a trickle, for some unknown reason, most daytime hours there is one constant water supply. The river. Almost every day I’ll see people coming down the street with towels over their shoulders and a bag in one hand with soap, shampoo and razors and they go down to the river and bathe in the cool water. Quite often I see women bringing down their dirty clothes to do their laundry in the river. Nobody thinks anything of it. Nobody moans and groans about it as far as I know. It’s just how life is here. People cope and get along with living.
One More Good Adventure 