Waterfall

A couple of weeks ago we went back to one of our favorite spots, the El Salto waterfall.  We had been twice in December, and it was interesting to see how much the water level had fallen since then.  The wet season ends in late December, and we have virtually no rain from January through March.

Of course we love to swim in this pool.  The water is very clear and cold.  It's too bad we have to walk an hour and a half to get here.  Sometimes we get a ride back for part of the way.  

On the way home from the waterfall, we saw this cow with a twisted horn and thought it was worth a picture.  Note that she is wearing a stick on her neck to keep her from going through fences.

Quinciñera

We were invited to a small town near here for a 15th birthday party for a girl who goes to school in Chepo.  It was a big event with lots of people attending.  One of the customs is for the father to put a ring on his daughter.

Because this is an Evangelical community, there was no dancing, and no alcohol.  There was a speech from our host father Aristides, who is also an Evangelical pastor.  

Afterwards there was lots of food for everyone (over 100 people).  Here are the pots of arroz con puerco,  (rice with pork).

Los Ceibos Again

We decided that we would make mud brick stoves for two of the families in the community of Los Ceibos.  This was our third visit.  We descended 1000 ft on the dirt path to the tiny hamlet.  There are only six houses there, only three of which have families in them now.  We really like the people who live there, so we didn't mind making the trip.   

Heather helped make bricks this time.

These kids were a little reluctant to get involved, but they did help make several of the bricks.

Here is the family with the finished product.  We will go back to the village on Sunday to help them assemble the stoves.

It wasn't all work on our trip.  We also took a trip to the swimming hole.  They let Heather ride the horse down the hill.

The kids love posing for pictures.  Here they are with their horse.

Visiting Amy

This past week we decided to visit a fellow Peace Corps volunteer in her town which is a half hour ride in a pickup truck transport from Chepo.  She has a delightful wooden house with a thatched roof.  She doesn't have electricity, though.

She took us for a walk through her town.  Along the way we spotted these two pigs sleeping by the side of the road.

The next day ANAM, the Panamanian environmental agency, came to Amy's school.  They gave a talk on how to make soap from old cooking oil.  Later, they handed out bags of gifts to all of the younger kids.  Each bag contained school supplies, including a backpack, and a uniform.  Each bag was donated by a different person, whose name was on the bag.  Last year the government provided new backpacks with school supplies to each student from grades 1 to 9.  This year they are not doing this, so private donors had to be found to fill the gap for some of the poorest communities.

Back to school!

School starts for all Panamanians in grades K-12 on February 25th.  The students have been on summer vacation since mid-December.  We visited the Chepo school last week, expecting to see preparations underway.  The boy's dorm looked much as it did on the first week of summer vacation.  We're glad we don't have to sleep on those mattresses!

We recently went to Panama City for Peace Corps meetings and took some time to visit an aquarium there run by the Smithsonian Institute.   They had one set of tanks for Caribbean fish and another for Pacific fish.  The Caribbean is warmer, clearer and more salty, so the most colorful life is found there.

Making more bricks

Steve continues to help the townspeople of Chepo to make mud brick stoves.  The latest count is 21 sets of bricks made, and 11 working stoves so far.  He is lucky to have a group of kids who love to help him.  They travel around the town helping him with his work.  

Mixing the mud for the bricks

They love getting their feet dirty!

Itzel helps Damiana with her stove

That's it for this week.  School starts today!

Cane Syrup

This past week we went to see one of our neighbors operate his trapiche, a machine for getting the juice out of sugar cane.  This horse-drawn device squeezes the sugar cane between two rollers just like the old washing machines used to do.  It's a lot of work both for the horse and the man feeding the sugar cane into the rollers.  Kino usually works for four or five hours straight to process the sugar cane.

Kino feeds the sugar cane into the rollers as his grandson Kevin looks on.

Each stalk of sugar cane goes through the rollers three times.  The third time Kino twists three stalks together to get the last bit of liquid out.

Here you can see the whole setup.  Kino's granddaughter Macurys rides the horse around in a circle for hours, switching off with Kevin, who assists his grandfather by handing the stalks back to him for another trip through the rollers.  You can see the cane juice flowing out and into the bucket.

Macurys rides the horse.  You can see the pile of old sugar cane stalks behind her.

The cane juice is boiled for a while in the big drum, and then transferred to the smaller pot to be boiled down into cane syrup.  The finished product looks like maple syrup and sells for $1.25 a liter.

Swimming Lessons

We go to the swimming hole about three times a week.  Heather often reads books to children in the center of town in the morning, followed by a trip to the river.  It's a great incentive for the kids to come to her class.  The younger kids in the group take advantage of Heather's prowess as a swimming instructor.  Many have made significant progress this summer.  We all have to take breaks to warm up, as the water is quite chilly. 

Yarisel swims to Heather while Alex waits his turn.

We end this week's blog with a picture of our neighbors Mayka, age 6, and Meicol, age 10.  They were sent by their parents on an errand to deliver two sacks of rice to the piladora, where the outer coating is ground off to leave white rice.  Fortunately the horse is pretty docile!

That's it for this week!

Steve and Heather