Independence Day!

November 3rd is not really Independence Day in Panama.  It's called Separation Day, the day that Panama separated from Colombia.  Their Independence Day is November 28th, when they got independence from Spain, but were still part of Colombia.  So there are two days to celebrate this month.  Actually, there are more, but we won't go into that.

On November 3rd, many women dress up in their polleras, typical skirts.  Here are a few examples.

Heather got her pollera made just in time!

The school had a parade along the main (and only) street of Chepo.

Afterwards, we visited one of our neighbors, where we saw how ingenious kids can play tug-of-war without a rope.

I think the girls won this one!

After the tug-of-war, it was time to peel some oranges.  Notice how the smallest girl gets the biggest knife.  She's in first grade.  It may seem like a lot of knife for a first grader, but keep in mind that the 10 and 11 year-olds are using machetes.

Here's Heather holding the youngest of the group.  What a head of hair on this one-year-old!

That's it for now,
Steve and Heather

Jaguar!

Jaguars are pretty uncommon these days in Panama.  Most have been hunted, and the remaining ones keep to remote areas, far from humans.  This past month, though, a jaguar was shot only 100 yards from a primary school in the nearby district of Los Pozos.  Jaguars are a protected species, so shooting one can bring a jail sentence, unless, of course, you shoot it in self-defense.  The person who shot the jaguar claimed that it killed two dogs and was attacking his nephew when he shot it.  The nephew says that he saw the jaguar kill the two dogs and tried to defend himself with a machete. He was losing the battle and shouted for his uncle, who happened to be nearby with a rifle.

The authorities are investigating the incident, and have suggested an alternate explanation.  They are suspicious because the nephew didn't even have a scratch on him.  They also wonder how the uncle just happened to be there with his rifle at the right time.  It is possible that the two were out hunting a jaguar, using dogs as bait.  This sounds barbaric to us, but dogs here in Panama don't have the same status that they do in the US, especially in rural areas.  Often there is not enough food for the family, and the dogs have to fend for themselves.  The most that a dog would get would be leftover table scraps.  

This picture shows the uncle with his trophy.  

They also uploaded a video of themselves clowning around with their guns and the body of the jaguar.  After viewing the video, it seems pretty apparent that they were hunters, not peasants surprised by the jaguar.

This news was alarming enough, but this past week things happened much closer to home.  On the dirt path leading past the swimming hole where we often walk, a student said that he saw a jaguar.  There was no other evidence, and no one believed him.  This came so quickly after the news of the other jaguar that it was dismissed as power of suggestion. 

Three days later, however, a woman was riding her horse on the same path on her way home to a nearby village and also happened upon a jaguar.  Her horse reared up, turned around and ran back to town.  She was lucky to stay in the saddle.  The authorities investigated and found a footprint of a jaguar which measured 5 inches from front to back.  This corresponds to approximately a 75 pound cat, which is big enough to do serious damage to horse or rider.

Fortunately incidents between humans and jaguars are extremely rare.  They prefer to keep far away from humans, and generally only attack small animals.  They also move around in a very large area.  It is estimated that this jaguar is now quite far away, so there is no need to worry about our safety :)   

Heather recently made a presentation for the National TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Congress at the Universidad Latina in Panama City.  Her topic was "Teaching Phonics with Dr. Seuss."  The audience consisted of Panamanian teachers of English in public and private schools and universities. She had a lot of fun preparing the presentation and the books brought back great memories.

Heather with a conference attendee.

That's it for now!

Steve and Heather

Bocas Del Toro

After hosting the large group of Peace Corps volunteers, we needed some time off to regroup and relax.  Bocas del Toro, on the Caribbean coast near Costa Rica, happens to have its dry season at the same time as Chepo is drowning in rain.  We spent six days on Isla Colon, where the town of Bocas is located.  There are lots of other islands in the area, and every day involved a trip over the water or to a beach.

We arrived by plane from Panama City on Sunday, and immediately rented bicycles and headed for Bluff Beach, about an hour away.  All the rental bikes are one-speed cruisers with coaster brakes.  Since the island is pretty flat, they were fine for the day.  We loved the orange sand of this deserted beach.  

Heather relaxes in the sun

The next day our friend Graycie, who is a Peace Corps volunteer on the nearby island of Bastimentos, joined us for a trip to Zapatilla Island, where we found a lovely white beach.  It was Graycie's birthday.

On Tuesday morning, we had a beautiful view from our hotel.

 Graycie's host father Rutilio gave her a trip to Bird Island as a birthday present.  We went along for the ride. 

Rutilio drives the boat

Graycie enjoys the ride

It was sunny as we approached the island. 

The island featured two natural bridges with a sheltered cove where we snorkeled. 

Steve gets some snorkeling time

Graycie took this shot with her underwater camera

Heather and Graycie do some snorkeling

Of course there were birds on Bird Island.  We're told that these are brown boobys.

This one is a white kite

Graycie took this photo

After an hour or so on the island, we headed away.

Bye Bye Bird Island

Our next stop was starfish beach, where we saw lots of these:

On Wednesday, Graycie had a Peace Corps meeting, but we headed out with Rutilio to the indigenous community where they lived.  We saw the school with Graycie's house behind it.

Rutilio and Heather in front of Graycie's house

This is the view from her house of the school with the mangrove islands in front.  There are no roads.  The students who don't live near the school have to come in by canoe.  Some of these primary school kids (grades K-6) have to paddle up to an hour to get to school.  If the weather is stormy, they can't make it.

Graycie sees the sunset here every night

The kids play baseball, which is insanely popular here.  Mariano Rivera, the recently retired reliever for the Yankees, is a national hero.  Note the adult in shorts and a tank top.  He teaches pre-school here as part of the Give and Surf program.  He lives in Bocas Town (where we stayed), where there are lots of hotels, restaurants and beaches to surf.  He comes over in the morning to teach, and then has the afternoon free to surf.

After looking around the community, it was time to head for the bat cave.  Rutilio is a guide and takes people to this secluded cave several times a week. He was the first one to explore the cave.  Most of the people there were afraid to enter the cave.  They were afraid of evil spirits.

We started off in his canoe, which was made of one huge hollowed-out log.  He had just finished repainting it.

We had to go up a small stream to get to the cave.  Rutilio turned off the engine and paddled the last half so as not to disturb any wildlife.  There were mangroves on both sides, with their tangle of roots.  They grow well on the edge of the ocean because they can stand the salt water better than other trees.  

mangrove roots

We walked the last fifteen minutes to get to the cave.  There were lots of tiny red frogs to be seen.

Once in the cave, there were hundreds of bats hanging from the ceiling.  The smell was pretty bad, but it got better as we went further into the cave.  We followed a stream up into the cave, passing through several pools of water, some of which were quite deep.  

On the way out, we stopped for this picture of a clump of bamboo.

Heather looks tiny next to all this bamboo!

On Thursday, it was time for a ride in a 40 ft catamaran.  Our skipper Marcel has owned the boat for 22 years and has crossed the Atlantic four times in it.  We felt we were in good hands.  Also on the boat were Mike, age 29, and his mother Carolyn.

Marcel poses as Mike looks on

Heather and Carolyn enjoy the ride.

It was a wonderfully sunny day when we set out.  We visited a nearby bay and did some snorkeling, which was impressive.  As we headed back, we saw a storm approaching in the distance.  The wind picked up to 25-30 mph, and the boat started to really pick up speed.  The dark sky in the distance, though, looked pretty ominous.

Batten down the hatches!

Marcel got a phone call from his friend in town who said that the storm was really blowing hard and was coming straight for us.  Marcel took the sails down and turned around so that we were going with the wind as a precaution.  It didn't take long for the full force of the storm to hit us.  Marcel estimated that the winds were 45-50 mph, which is deemed gale force.  After a few minutes of this, Marcel decided that there was no reason to just sit there.  We could sail into this wind.  He put up a tiny storm jib on the bow, and put the mainsail up to about 3/4 of its full size.  We headed right up into the wind, spilling most of the force out of the sails.  Mike and Steve had a fun time trying to see who could stand up on the deck the longest without holding on to anything.  They quit after a short time because it was not difficult to do - the 40 ft catamaran was very stable and hardly pitched or rolled at all with the waves.  We had complete confidence in Marcel, and he brought us safely home.  

On our final day in Bocas we went back to Starfish Beach, this time by bus.  It was another beautiful day.

This dugout canoe is made of one huge tree.  It has seen better days.

Rested and relaxed, we headed back to Chepo to continue our work.  Our bus stopped along the way and Heather was happy to get this huge bag of veggies for only $5.

It's the rainy season in Chepo now, and it has been pouring every afternoon, sometimes for hours at a time.  This morning, however, it is sunny and clear.  This is the view from the hill behind our house.  The mountains in the distance are on the continental divide, 65 miles away.

That's it for now!

Steve and Heather

Orchids, waterfalls and more snakes!

Things have been busy here in Chepo.  We had a visit from Peace Corps friends, then the annual Orchid Festival in Las Minas, and finally a week-long visit from 24 Peace Corps volunteers who did training here in our town.  We are just now getting enough time to get back to the blog.  This time we have our own snake story to tell (we survived!).

A couple of weeks ago we had a visit from Ashley and Simone, two women who completed their two years of being PC volunteers, and are doing an extra year here in Panama.  Ashley did her first two years in Paraguay, Simone in Panama.  Their first day in Chepo included a hike up to the Alto del Higo, our nearby mountain.  Unfortunately the rain arrived at the top before we did, so we got the view of the inside of a cloud.

Ashley and Simone on the hill behind our house, before the rain came.

The next day, however, was unusually clear as we set out to go to our favorite waterfall a couple of hours away.  We could see the Pacific as we left Chepo, heading for the town of El Corotú.  

 Islas Cebaco and Gobernadora

In El Corotú we added three cousins to our group.  They had been asking us when we would return to the waterfall so that they could go with us.  It was Sunday morning and they were all dressed to go to catechism at the Catholic Church, but their mother gave them permission to play hooky and go with us.

We headed down the steep hill towards the falls.  At the last house before the waterfall we saw these pigs asleep in the yard.  We also picked up a fourth cousin.

At last we arrived at the waterfall.  There was one pool directly below the falls, and another further down.  We all had a great time swimming and jumping off rocks.

Soraida, Ashley, Simone, Yariela, Norisbel, Mileidis, and Heather

On the way back up the hill the pigs were still asleep, but with a different dog this time.

Simone and Ashley departed, and we were left to arrange housing for the 24 PC volunteers and two leaders.  That took quite a while as a few families changed their minds and we had to look for more places to put people.  Eventually all was set, 19 families for 26 people, and we headed to the shore for one night to relax before the group came.

There were lots of pelicans at the shore.  I guess a school of fish was nearby. We were able to catch a few diving into the water.  They really hit the water hard!

At bottom left a pelican hits the water

Then it was back to Chepo to make the final preparations for the group visit, including a few more housing changes. The annual orchid festival was that weekend, so we hit that for a few hours.  The orchids were as spectacular as they were last year.

Tipico hats were also on sale

On Sunday, everyone arrived.  The bus was an hour and a half late, as a storm had downed several trees on the road to Chepo.  Everyone waited patiently for their guests, and soon we had everyone in their houses.  The people of Chepo gave them a very warm welcome, and made every effort to make them feel at home.  One family had a two bedroom house, and all four of them slept in one room to accommodate their guest.  Both the guests and host families told us over and over what a good time they were having with each other.  There were no complaints!!  We were relieved.

On Monday morning it was off to the Bailey house for some stove making.  We started with theory, and then made bricks and wooden molds in the morning.  In the afternoon we assembled stoves in two nearby houses.

Other activities included planting coffee in the school grounds and making terraces at the house of our neighbor Polin.

At the school we found this amazing praying mantis.  It looked exactly like dead leaves, but it really is alive.

We also saw our neighbor with an unusual way to bring his horse back after it got away!

Wednesday afternoon was the time allotted for the hike up to the Alto del Higo.  A fine rain started as we set off to climb, and it turned into a downpour as we reached the top.  It was a good character-building experience as we picked our way down the trail, which had become a river of liquid mud.  The four local kids who had joined us hopped down the trail as if this were normal for them, which of course it was.  Even they slipped and fell over at times.

Heather led the way down, and Steve brought up the rear.  As he was nearing the end, he found two or three people waiting to warn him that there was an equis (fer-de-lance, very poisonous) snake by the side of the trail.  It was difficult to see at first, but there it was, coiled up by the side of the trail, only a foot or so from where people had walked by.  It's head was facing away from the trail, but it could have struck in any direction.  Luckily they are not aggressive snakes.  They generally will not strike unless you step on them (or try to kill them with a machete!).  Steve and his group gave the snake a wide berth, and everyone passed safely.  Heather was pretty surprised to find out that she had walked right past it without knowing!

This is the snake eight people walked by without seeing!

Of course we had to tell everyone in town about our snake story, which generated more snake stories in return.  The best one was about a person who killed an equis with a machete.  He knew that he couldn't chop it in half without the danger of the half snake biting him, so he cut it right behind the head, which flew up into the air.  When he got home, his wife asked him what was on the back of his hat brim.  They found that the snake head, in its final gasp, had sunk its teeth right through the hat brim and was still attached.  It's a good thing he was wearing a hat!

(Note to self: Wear a hat when chopping off the heads of poisonous snakes with a machete!)

The group left on Saturday morning.  It had been a lot of work, but the activities all went smoothly and we were glad to have hosted the group here. We had fun!  We have already heard of many families who have invited people back to visit.  I think several of them will come back to see their new friends in Chepo.

We will slip off into the sunset for another week or two.  If you look closely you can see the Pacific Ocean below the clouds.

Steve and Heather