Landslides!

We returned from our whirlwind tour of the US  (10 days, three cities, one wedding) to a warm welcome from the people of Chepo.  It was really good to see everyone again after our absence of two weeks.

We found out that lots had happened in Chepo in our absence.  They had three days and three nights of nonstop rain, with lots of wind.  We definitely missed the worst weather this year.  They say that October has the most rain of any month, so it was a good time for us to be out of the country.

They had thunderstorms mixed with steady rain for the whole three days and nights.  Lightning struck a transformer, so that part of the town was also without power for a few days.  Some people also lost water during that time.  Our water comes from a mountain stream.  A small dam was built way up in the mountains, and the water from the resulting pool is piped down into the town.  When it rains a lot, sometimes the water intake gets clogged up with leaves and we lose water until someone can go up and clear the blockage.  Usually it only lasts a few hours, but I guess it was hard to keep the intake clear when the rain is pouring down.  Some people were taking showers in the runoff from their roofs.  

Another problem from the rainstorms was that we had several small landslides, mostly along the banks recently cut through by the widening and repaving of the road.  They planted grass along the banks, but it didn't have enough time to grow enough to stop the steep banks from collapsing across the road.  The main road was closed for a day when a couple of trees and a lot of dirt fell across the road.  The townspeople had been saying all along that they were making the banks too steep, and that there would be a problem when the rains started in earnest, and it seems that they were proven correct.

This is how it looked when we returned home.  Note the sunny day!

Most of the dirt has been cleared away

Ironically, this is our third day here in Chepo and it only rained a half hour or so the entire time.  It's sunny right now.  I guess we timed our visit to the US very well!

Our nice newly paved road is all dirty :(

Jungle Life!

Howler monkeys

We have lots of wildlife around Chepo.  We have howler monkeys, which howl in the distance almost every morning.  They might even wake you up if the windows are open, which they usually are around here.   They also howl a lot in the evening around sundown. 

The monkeys are very territorial.  If you enter their space, they will let you know that they don't want you there.  I heard them one day on a trail in the mountains.   It starts with just one monkey grunting softly, then louder and louder.  Soon there are echoing noises, which increase in volume until there are several monkeys howling back and forth for you to get out of there.  It can be kind of scary as their volume grows.  I definitely did not want to stick around!  Here is a link to hear them howling at me.

We also have toucans which come around our house.  Sunday we heard three of them up in the trees and went to investigate.  We didn't get a picture of them, but I did record their unusual call, which you can hear here.  It sounds more like a cricket than a bird!

We took this picture in May

Leaf cutters!

I used to think that the leaf cutter ants were so impressive.  Each of the little reddish-brown insects can carry leaf fragments much larger than itself.  They even team up to carry big pieces, as you can see from the picture.  They form an "ant highway" which is just flowing with green bits being carried off by these industrious creatures.  

Of course, there are two sides to every story.  These leaves come from plants which are in the process of being stripped bare by the ants.  Some of our neighbors have lost a lot of plants to these attackers.  

The other day I brought home a basil cutting from the school and planted it in a small pot on the back porch.  Within hours the ants had discovered it and were in the process of dismantling it, even though the pot was on top of a three foot cement wall.  I guess they can smell that basil from a long way off!  I had to bring the basil indoors to protect it. These ants are no longer cute - they are a pest!  Fortunately they don't like any of the other plants that we are growing.

We saved it just in time

20 stories??

We recently found out via Google Earth that the elevation of our house is 200 ft higher than that of the school.  This means that we are climbing the equivalent of a 20 story building every time we go home.  No wonder we both have lost a few pounds since moving here!  The students all have to climb the same hill to get to the main road.  They all are very fit as a result.  We don't pass them going up the hill, not even the 6 year-olds!

Vegetables

Steve has been attending training sessions organized by the office of the First Lady to teach the local people how to raise crops in home gardens.  For the last three months we have been meeting on the school grounds and preparing seed beds, making organic fertilizer, and planting vegetables.  For the final session we went to the school lunchroom of a nearby town where many of our group live.   The lesson for the day was how to prepare all of these vegetables that we are raising.  There were 9 different recipes to be made, using locally grown vegetables.  The dishes ranged from cabbage leaves soaked in vinegar and salt and then wrapped around tuna (very tasty!) to pureed squash with sautéed veggies.  All were delicious.

Our trainer Meinaldo with the veggie dishes

Many of the group had never tried eating these vegetables.  We had some zucchini left over and the school cook had to admit that she didn't know what it was.  In Panama, vegetables are not often eaten.  The diet is long on rice, with some meat and very little vegetables.  Their signature dish, "arroz con pollo" (rice with chicken), is a delicious meal, but usually contains about 85% rice, 10% meat, and 5% veggies.  We make it at home sometimes but change the proportions!

When Heather is teaching about foods in English classes, she found that many of the kids couldn't identify common vegetables like broccoli, lettuce, and celery.

Chepo's first mud brick stove

On Sunday we made the first of our mud brick stoves.  This picture shows a couple of cement blocks temporarily supporting the structure until it dries more thoroughly.  

José with his new stove

Drying out is a problem now, as October and November are the rainiest months of the year.   It's really hard to find a place protected from rain, but open enough to allow the bricks to dry thoroughly.  The wind blows the rain under some overhanging roofs.  We also found out the hard way that you need to put the bricks up off the ground somewhere so that dogs and chickens don't walk on them!  Fortunately the bricks are soft enough at the beginning so that footprints can be erased.

We end with a picture that should have gone in last week - kids dressed up for mass at the Catholic church:

Yeimi, Yohannys, Myelis and Diego at church

Pig Roast!

Last Sunday, Enrique, the son of our neighbors and Chepo's first and only ordained priest, came back to town to lead a mass in the Catholic church.  He brought many members of his parish with him, and there was a big party to celebrate.  In Panama, due to the shortage of priests, there is one priest per district.  We live in the district of Las Minas, with around 40 communities.  Enrique has the adjacent district, Los Pozos, with about the same number of communities.  How does one priest serve 40 towns?  He is very, very busy.  The bigger towns get one visit a month from Enrique, with the biggest ones getting the Sunday visits.  The little towns, especially those which require a long walk to get there, might only get a visit every two or three months, usually for some town holiday like the day of their patron saint.  

The visitors descended on the town of Chepo, arriving in all kinds of vehicles, from pickup trucks to a minibus.  The preparations, however, started two days in advance.  Someone had to prepare the food for over one hundred people, and that job fell to Enrique's parents and family.  

There was a pig roasted over the open fire.

Myelis, Yeimi and Noelis get a whiff of the roasting pig

Grandpa Andrés cuts up the pig's head.  No parts go to waste!

Nothing was left unused except these!

Pig's feet anyone?

Meanwhile, the women prepared bollo.  They husked countless ears of corn, ground it all by hand, and made it into small rolls which were boiled wrapped in palm leaves.

Grandma Librada with her grandkids

It was a fun party even though it rained on the day.  Panamanians are used to the rain, and there was enough space for them all to be under one roof or another.

On another note, Steve's mud brick stove project got off the ground with the making of the first batch of bricks.  They are taking quite a while to dry out in our rainy season, but we hope to build a stove soon.

Steve and José get their feet dirty

We leave you with a couple of views from the mountains here.

The Pacific Ocean and the Isla Leones (Lion Island)

As far as we know there aren't any lions there now!

Sunrise!

That's it for now!

Steve and Heather