Surf's Up!

 This past weekend we decided to head for the beach for a little relaxation.  We went to visit our fellow Peace Corps volunteer Sally in her town near Cambutal Beach on the south coast of our peninsula.  Neither our town nor hers is near a major road, so we had to take five different trucks and buses (and six hours!) to get there.  Friday night we stayed at a lovely hostel with a view of the beach.

The view from the hostel

A nice place to relax!

Saturday morning we woke up to steady rain.  After all, it is the rainy season here from May until December.  Fortunately the rain stopped after breakfast and by mid-morning the beach was sunny. Sally and Steve borrowed a beginner surfboard, and Heather went along to document the event.  Steve had not been surfing since the early days of the Southbank School in London, during their outdoor education weeks.  That was 30 years ago!  His goal was just to stand up on the board.  He was happy that he was able to get a few rides and stand up three or four times for a few seconds!

Steve and Sally get ready to surf!

While we were there, three men showed up and set up their motorized parachutes with a big fan located behind the operator.  The gasoline motors were pretty loud, but it looked like fun.  We probably won't try it though, as trees and power lines could be a problem if the wind picks up!

Getting ready to launch

These three disappeared into the morning sky

There were some nice little cabañas on the shore.  Maybe on a future visit we will try them.

After the surfing, we headed to Sally's town a short distance inland.  She introduced us to the families in her town and took us on a tour.

It's never too early to start to ride!

This iguana project is supposed to take some pressure off the endangered iguanas in the wild.  The owners will either eat or sell them.

 The big event of the year in her town was the baile (dance) on Saturday night.  Sally was not able to attend last year due to a Peace Corps training event, so she really wanted to see this one.  The baile started early with a cantadera, which is part singing contest, part poetry slam.  Two men start out, each singing a décima, which is a ten-line song with eight syllables per line and a certain rhyming scheme which has to be followed.  One singer starts out with a décima with a particular theme, usually something simple like the characteristics of men, women, or love.  The other singer has to decide if he agrees with the first person or not, usually not.  He offers a décima of his own.  They alternate for several times, each one trying to outdo the other.  One will make some arguing points, and the other will rebut and offer opposing points.  After the first couple of rounds, they have to make up their décimas on the spot, which to us seems like a very difficult thing to do.  These guys, however, have lots of experience and make it look easy.  All this goes on for a few hours before the dancing begins.

The man in the dark blue is thinking up his next décima while the other man sings.

You may have noticed the bottles on the table in the last picture.  There was a lot of drinking going on, which is normal for a baile.  Beers were 75 cents each (three times the store price), which made them accessible to all.  The real bargain, though was the seco, a kind of rum made from sugar cane.  A liter of seco only costs a few dollars.  Usually it is mixed with ice and a soft drink, but we saw a lot of people drinking straight from the bottle.

There are lots of seco bottles around

We were happy that we were able to drink a beer or two in public without a problem. In Chepo, it is illegal to buy liquor anywhere, so we don't drink in our town.  At the baile, however, the townspeople expected us to drink.

Around 11 pm they cleared away the tables in the center of the area and people started dancing to Panamanian tipico music, which was quite lively.  The main instrument in the band was the accordion, which was accompanied by a bass guitar and three drummers.  They alternated between a male and female singer, and both were quite good.  In order to dance, men each had to pay $5.00.  (We thought this price was a little steep - after all, $5.00 is almost seven beers!),  A bright green paper was stapled to each man's collar after paying.  The price was really $5.00 per couple, as the women weren't charged anything.  The dancing was very popular, with the dance floor filled to capacity for each dance with couples of all ages.  We left around midnight, but the band kept going until around 3:30.

On Sunday morning, we left early so that we could be home in time to watch the US-Panama soccer final of the Gold Cup (Central and North America).  We went over to our neighbors' house with two flags (one of each country) to see the game.  At half time we made popcorn for everyone, and they made us a delicious dessert from local fruits.  We felt badly for our hosts when the US scored the goal and went ahead.  They took it pretty well.  "Someone had to win," said one of them.

In mid-July the University of Panama celebrated 75 years of their English program with a week-long congress at the Panama City campus. Heather and a few other Peace Corps Volunteers in the Teaching English program made presentations at the congress.  Steve tagged along and we spent three nights in the city. We met up with lots of Peace Corps friends who were in the city for various reasons. On Saturday night we had tickets to see Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida, the musical.  We  were so excited to finally see the inside of the National Theatre where it was held, and the production of Aida was first class.  

The National Theater of Panama

We found out last month that the Peace Corps will be coming to Chepo for in-service training  for six nights in September.  The most recent group of environmental volunteers (24 in total), arrived in Panama in February.  They have been in their communities for a few months now, so they have had time to decide which projects will be best for their sites.  They will be training here in making stoves, reforestation, gardening, and other topics.  Steve has a lot of organizing to do in the meantime, as host families have to be found for everyone, and lunches and training activities arranged.  We are honored that they chose our town for this important event.  Now we just have to make sure it all happens smoothly!

Well, that's it for now.  

Steve and Heather

Peace Corps 50th Reunion

 This past weekend was a special one.  The Peace Corps is celebrating its 50th reunion this year, and each country has a celebration sometime during the year.  This week it was Panama's turn.  Past (Returned) Peace Corps volunteers (in PC lingo - RPCV's) came from all over for various activities in Panama City.  On the weekend they dispersed to the various provinces where they had served. Many of them were here in Panama during the 60's, and hadn't been back to their communities in over 40 years.  They were a fun-loving group, and we had a good time with them at lunch, and then later at a local restaurant for happy hour.

Old timers and current volunteers

One woman brought lots of pictures of her stay in the neighboring province of Los Santos.  It was fascinating to look at pictures from the late 60's and to see how much has changed in Panama and how much still remains the same.  Here are a few:

This woman knows how to carry a heavy load!

This iguana is headed for the dinner table! 

In those days, making houses from mud was a common practice.  They got huge groups of people together to put up the wooden frame, mix the mud, and put it up on the wall.

First, they erected the frame of the house

Then it was time to mix the mud and straw for the bricks

Finally the mud goes up on the house walls.

All those men need to eat a lot of tortillas!

Tortillas on the fire

Nowadays in Chepo, almost all of the construction is with cement blocks (cinderblocks).  To save money, they mix their own cement and form the blocks in a mold here in Chepo.  Some houses are made of wood, and a few mud houses still survive here.  Our neighbor just added on a room to his house, and did so using the same technique illustrated above.  Since it was just a couple of walls, he only needed a few people to help.  Unfortunately we weren't  there to witness the construction, but here is a shot of the finished product.

Also, in Chepo now they don't get together in huge groups to make houses or to help harvest crops like they did in the past.  It's harder to get people to work together towards a common goal.  People are busy with their own affairs.

We had some time to talk to the RPCV's about their experiences both here in Panama and afterwards in the US.  The Peace Corps back then was a lot more loosely organized.  They would often send someone to a town and tell them to do what they thought the town needed.  Sometimes it took quite a while to find someone to work with in the town and to decide on a project that was needed by the community and was within the skill set of the volunteer.  These days the Peace Corps researches each town throughly before they send in a new volunteer.  People in the town need to affirm ahead of time that they want to work with the volunteer on certain projects.

It was interesting to hear the RPCV's talk about their re-entry into the US.  Sometimes it was a bit of a culture shock to go back home.  They had lots of things they wanted to share with people back home, but often people back home didn't want to hear very much about it because it was so far out of their realm of experience.  They asked a few basic questions and then changed the subject.  Several people said that they had changed a lot in the Peace Corps, but that people back home expected them to be the same.  I think this is one reason why most areas in the US have active RPCV organizations.  People who have done Peace Corps like sharing their experiences with each other, and these organizations often promote programs in developing countries, so that their members can continue helping others after coming home.

We are hoping that those of you reading our blog will know enough about what goes on here to have to have some good conversations with us on our return!  We can't believe that we have only 8 months to go.  The time has really flown by.

Will we come back to visit Panama after we leave?  We definitely plan to come back, though I don't think we will wait 40 years to do so!  Since we will be retired, we plan on coming back every few years to see how our friends in the town are doing.

A few days ago, we were in our house and heard a pig squealing and dogs barking.  A pig had fallen off a truck right in front of our house.  Its front legs were tied together so that it couldn't walk.    Our neighbor Andrés grabbed the pig by an ear and the tail and slid it into a mud puddle.  Heather doused the pig with a bucket of water, as it was a hot day.  We untied the front legs, and tied a rope onto the back legs so that Andrés could walk the pig home to his house. It turns out that the best way to walk a pig is with a rope on its hind legs, as you can see in the photo below.

A few days later a boy from a neighboring town came looking for his pig, and he gave Andrés $6 for taking care of the pig.

That's it for this week!

Steve and Heather