Up the mountain again!

In Panama we only have two seasons - dry and wet. They call the wet season the winter and the dry season the summer, even though the dry season is January through March, when the days are shorter here.  We are so close to the equator (8 degrees) that we only lose a half hour of daylight, so you hardly notice the difference.

Since it’s summer here, the schools are out and the kids are on vacation for a couple of months.  Normally in vacation time the kids are over at our house all the time asking if we can take them to the swimming hole or to the mountain.  The mountain, the Alto del Higo, is the highest spot in our province at 3200 ft.  

Parents in town almost never take their kids up the mountain.  Many of the parents were prohibited as kids from going up there, so they don’t feel comfortable taking their kids up. There used to be jaguars up there, and you still see snakes from time to time. Plus, family excursions are not really part of Panamanian culture.  The kids usually find ways of amusing themselves on their own.

Given the pent-up demand for a trip up the mountain (I had been in the US for almost two months), I only had to mention to several of the local kids that I was going up on Tuesday, and they showed up in droves.  I told everyone to be at my house at 9 am.  Everyone knows that people here show up “Panamanian time”, which means late.  After two years here, we are still trying to figure out how late “Panamanian time” is.  Some events start two hours late, some a half hour late, and some start on time.  Heather and I always seem to misjudge it.

Imagine my surprise when kids started showing up at 8:30 am for the trip.  They were all there by 8:50, ready to go.  We set off, picking up a few more kids on the way.  There were 16 of us in the group, ranging in age from 10 to 23.

Kids here love to run.  It doesn’t matter if we are going up the mountain or down, they will run.  I let one group go ahead, and I went with the group that was just walking fast.  I told them that no one could climb the tower until I got there, and they did obey that rule.

Of course we had to stop at the “Tarzan vine” along the way.  Many of the kids were too short to reach it and needed a boost from their friends.

We finally made it to the top and the kids clambered up the antenna tower, which is 100 ft high.  Six of the fifteen kids made it to the top of the tower; the others stopped at various points along the way.  They all had a good time.

Zuleika and Daysi enjoy the view from the top

Michelle made it to the top for the first time.  She has been up the mountain four times with me.

Melissa and Jonathan make their way to the top.  They are from Panama City, visiting their Chepo cousins.

Kids never tire of posing for the camera!

Before going down, the kids all took a “say hi to Heather” picture, which I sent to her later.

You would think that after running down the mountain, everyone would be tired enough to just want to relax in the hammock for the afternoon.  You would be wrong.  First they headed to the Bailey house for some wet porch sliding.  

Still full of energy!

I finally sent them home at lunchtime, but not before they had extracted a promise from me to take them to the river in the afternoon.  I didn’t take much convincing - it was a nice way to cool off.

Jorge jumps from the rocks

Johannys makes a heart with her hands while the others ham it up for the camera.

That's it for now!

Youth Camp

A couple of weeks ago Steve took part in a Peace Corps sponsored youth camp.  It was organized by GAD, the Gender And Development group of which he is the secretary.  The camp started on a Monday afternoon and finished on Friday morning.  There were 28 students ranging from ages 11 to 18 and 14 Peace Corps volunteers.  We met at the high school in the nearby town of Las Minas.

 Each morning the group was awakened at 6 am for a morning session of exercise starting at 6:30.  We did yoga, calisthenics, and dance on the three days.

Someone's not in sync!

The kids were surprisingly good at yoga

 We divided in to groups, each with their own color, banner and group name.

Steve's group chose the name "The Incredibles"

Each student had to decorate an egg, which was to be their "baby" for two days.  The group with the most surviving at the end got points for their group.  If they left the egg unattended, the "duendes" would come and steal it.  Duendes (warlocks) are actually something that some people in the mountains still believe in.

Ernesto decorates his egg

This baby didn't make it to the second day :(

We had classes on reproductive health and how to avoid AIDS and STD's.  The students practiced putting condoms on each other's fingers.

On the last afternoon we had the Olympics, where the groups competed with various games.

Who can get there first?

Luis and Danny celebrate the victory

At the end, we were all tired but sad to see the camp end.  It was a great four days.

Joan with the three kids from her town

To see a 3-minute video of the camp, click here.

Back in Panama!

Our world took a dramatic change on November 4th, when Heather slipped getting out of the back of a pickup truck and fell and broke her wrist and her L4 vertebra.  It took 12 days for her to be diagnosed correctly and for the decision to be made to fly her via air ambulance to NYC for an operation.  They fused her bottom three vertebrae together on November 18th, putting metal rods in her back to support her spine.  Steve accompanied her home and spent November and December with her, helping her do everyday tasks which she could no longer do.  Heather's sister Jan and her husband Tom invited us to stay with them during the recuperation, for which we are very grateful.

Now that two months have passed since the operation, Heather is becoming very independent.  She can finally drive a car, and she can get dressed by herself.  She can walk for long distances with no problem, and has walked up to an hour and 45 minutes at a stretch.  She is still not allowed to bend, twist or lift more than five pounds, though.  She has to wear a plastic back brace for one more month.  Heather was medically separated from the Peace Corps at the end of December.  They only give you 45 days to recover, and if you're not ready, you have to leave the Peace Corps.

Heather is making great progress, and hopes to be well enough to visit Panama and our town of Chepo sometime in March, which is our final month in Panama.

In the meantime, Steve went back to Panama on January 2 and has been on his own in Chepo ever since.  The two months will be the longest we will have been separated in our nearly 40 years of marriage!  So far, we are coping OK with the situation.  We talk every night on the phone and email frequently, sending pictures of each place to each other.

So, after a hiatus of a few months, the blog is back in action.  There is lots to show you.  One of the first thing Steve did when he got back is the hike that Heather and he would have done the day of her accident.  Joan Campau, the PC volunteer in nearby La Loma, led the trip.  We visited the town of El Platito, which only has a few houses and a small primary school.  We saw two students who commute to the Chepo school while we were there.

You can barely see the school nestled among the trees in the center of the photo

Then we headed to the hamlet of La Margaja, which has only four houses.  Two of them belong to two brothers who have 19 children between them.  The grandparents are in another house, and an uncle in the fourth.  It takes at least an hour to reach the hamlet no matter which direction you approach from.

On the way to La Margaja

Joan and her dog Bobby lead the way

Arriving in La Loma

Of course, we couldn’t just relax when we got to La Loma.  Joan’s host family lives right next door, and a group of kids descended upon us wanting to go to the river for a swim.  After lunch and some relaxation, we took three kids with us to the swimming hole.

The water here is crystal clear

All three of them claimed to not know how to swim, but two of them did pretty well with a bit of instruction.  Everyone had fun.

Joan has fun with her neighbors

Gifts for Mothers

For the past few years, the political party in power (Cambio Democratico) has given out gifts to all the mothers in our area on Jan 6th, in a thinly disguised effort to buy their votes.  This year it was a few days late, but the event took place as it usually does.  Every mother gets a plastic bowl full of food, and chairs and mattresses were given out by drawing names out of a hat.  A few kids got bicycles, too.  A politician from out of town talked for far too long, and then everyone got a free meal.  Then the fun started.  First the mothers took turns swinging at a piñata, which was filled with candy.  After the moms had scrambled for their candy, another piñata was there for the kids.  This one was full of flour and candy! You can see the results below.

Anita takes a swing

Flour, candy and pandemonium!

Evangelic Baptism

Our host father Aristides is an Evangelic pastor.  This past week he had a baptism for eleven people.  This is far different from your typical Catholic or Protestant baptism.  First of all, the minimum age is ten or eleven, so that the people know what they are getting into.  Secondly, the baptism takes place in a stream with waist-deep water.  Here are a couple of people who were baptized that day.

Don't worry, he's not trying to drown them.  They are only under water for a second.

That's it for now, more to come soon!

Steve