Summer begins in December here. The local Panamanian schools end their school year and take their summer vacations and will begin school again in February/March. Crossroads Christian Academy, on the other hand, is run in a North American style and on a North American schedule. So we get 3 weeks off for Christmas and begin again next Monday in full force for 2nd semester. Due to a variety of reasons, we Pills decided to stay home, in Panama, this Christmas instead of going home, to Jacksonville (does that sound weird to anyone but me?).
So, I wanted to give you a bit of a rundown on what all occurred here.
First of all, summer (verano) here started with a whimper as we gave and graded semester exams…Boo!! Hiss!! But, we got it done.
Then we entered Christmas “season” in full force with flurries of fireworks at random increments from morning ’til well into the night/next morning! Really, one could say, that the fireworks from November never really stopped at all in celebrating Panama’s various Independence Days, Thanksgiving (for those of us that celebrate that United States holiday), Christmas, and New Year’s!
The bombs bursted in air with an abundance of sounds, colors, and rapidity. It was actually pretty awesome! We went full force Panamanian this year and went to a friend’s house up the road a piece and launched fireworks into the air as soon as the sun went down. We ate (again…we cooked Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve and had another family over to dine with us), and we talked, and the kids played around the neighborhood and in the house. And at midnight on Christmas Eve our little crew joined the cacophony of whistles and booms that was un Panameño Feliz Navidad! They love to welcome Baby Jesus into their country by celebrating His birth in “style!” Then, traditionally, people open presents and celebrate Christ’s birth some more inside their homes exchanging gifts. And of course they then sleep in the following day! Yes!
So that was different…and very cool at the same time. Santa Claus is on the down low in these here parts, and I’m good with that. At least the focus was on Jesus… I saw only 2 Santa Claus(i) and they were both skinny dudes hanging from the ceiling of the Albrook Mall; not cool (or jolly) at all!
The fireworks continued and summer began between Christmas and New Year’s as the wind shifted to blowing strong out of the North and the rain all but ceased! Some days, not today, it’s actually cool enough to simply open the windows and let the wind gust through the house! We actually had our windows open for a couple of weeks as verano (summer) was attempting to sneak in and blow the rainy season away.
By way of education, these 3 months are called summer around here because when the rain stops and the skies clear up the temperatures tend to be on the rise! So it’s actually a bit hotter here in the winter months even though we are still in the Northern hemisphere and should be experiencing “cold.” It’s just not the case. We call it either dry season here or summer or verano. I love the breezes…”It’s all about the breeze, Pepper!” {inside joke}
So then we celebrated Feliz Año Nuevo with even more fireworks! It was like a war zone out here! Pepper and Drew were running around watching all the various pockets of people sending bombs into the air and exploding into an array of colors and sounds that made us “ooh” and “ahh”! Not sure the locals understood that…oh well.
The following day was the 1st of January and we packed up almost everything we own (which consists of dive gear and clothes) and together with the Whites and the Hilburns (more teachers from the school) we loaded up 2 vehicles and headed West (Go West young man…)!
We actually live pretty much smack dab in the middle between the two bridges that take you over the Panama Canal. The South bridge is called the Puente de las Americanas, or Bridge of Americas. We don’t normally use that one simply because we have to drive through more traffic lights, and traffic, to get there. So we went to the North bridge which is called the Puente Centenario, or the Centennial Bridge. It’s a beautiful bridge!
I’d like to take this particular opportunity to give a plug for my lovely wife’s Facebook page! Just click the link and view her photos…simply awesome! If you’re not a friend of hers just send a Facebook friend request with a little message saying you read this and wanted to view her photos of Panama and such. Here, click the following link! http://www.facebook.com/#!/allison.pilliod
So, why am I sending you to her page? Well, the internet in a 3rd world country is spotty and uploading pictures to the blog is…well…a royal pain! But uploading to Facebook is much easier. That, and my wife’s cool too {wink}
Ok, so we went over the Puente Centenario and passed by a couple small towns on our way to David…that’s pronounced “Dah-Veed” round here! We stayed in a hotel for the night after eating dinner and woke up early to head out for the 2nd leg of our journey.
Something else to understand, if I may interject into my own story telling here, is that the speedometers in the cars are a bit deceiving. Mine is in km/hr. So when we get up to 80 km/hr we’re really not going very fast! Basically, take your km/hr number and divide by 10 and then multiply by 6. Sooooo…when it looks like we’re cruising along at 80, it’s really only 48 mph! Doh! Now, 48 mph is perfectly fine because the roads aren’t really smooth, neither are they straight! So there are some serious curves whereby one must slow down to 60 km/hr or so just to go around them even though the speed limit might be 80 or 100 km/hr. Crazy! Also, since I drive a diesel with a 4-banger engine WITHOUT turbo, going up hills usually requires me to downshift so I don’t lose TOO MUCH velocity! Again, it’s just crazy!
So we left David and headed towards the mountains! And when I say mountains, I means MOUNTAINS! One of these days, the Pills will be hiking up Volcan Baru which is around 11,500 feet above sea level. Just to put that in perspective, the Smokys are somewhere around the 4-6 thousand foot level. Zoikes! And since Panama is so skinny as a country, that 11,500 feet happens with a quickness. Oh yeah, and winter arrives!
So we’re using our SCUBA skills of clearing/popping our ears as the pressure changed crazy fast while the Lil Mule had to be down shifted to 2nd gear just to get us up the steep hills when the mist/drizzle starts coming “down.” I put that in quotes because it wasn’t so much that it was raining as that we were really simply driving through the clouds at the time. The temperature was somewhere in the upper 50s to lower 60s with 25 mph sustained winds blowing the water “trapped” in the clouds into my very open windows! Gusts were likely over 50 mph in the pass and there were times I thought the Lil Mule was going to get blown over the edge and down the mountain!
But we made it back down and with every foot of decline we could feel the temperature rising back up to normal!
We ended up in the port town of Almirante where it looked like the Chiquita Banana people had taken over and monopolized the shipping industry there. We passed by some extremely poor zones in that town and passed some bicyclers and got passed by some bicyclers as well. Apparently the poor can get bikes whereby the pedals don’t fall off but if you’re from the big city of Panama City and decide to purchase some bikes for your kids they fall apart. I’m thinking of loading up the bikes and driving the 10 hours to Almirante to get them fixed by the local children there…they seem to do a fine job of having working bikes! But I digress…
As gringos with vehicles we heard a lot of people yelling “Bocas!” at us/to us. They figured we were headed to Bocas! Hah! They were right. They’re looking for a buck either for giving you directions or helping you get your luggage unloaded or for parking your car in some spot. They’ll “watch” your vehicle for you for a fee and when you get back it’s nice to tip them again. Hey, I could unload the luggage myself and tote it over to the boat, but why not contribute to the community? They need a buck. I’ve got a buck. They’re willing to lug my luggage for a buck. I’m willing to let them lug my luggage for a buck. Works for both of us.
So we get our stuff loaded onto a little water taxi and the 9 of us from Clayton/CCA, along with 20 of our brand new “closest” friends, speed off across the channel to Bocas town! But first we had to pass by the little homes built out over the water. These folks were poor, for sure, and their outhouses were basically just for privacy…the waste just went into the water around their home. That, and it looked like everything that anybody ever tossed off a ship at sea ended up collecting in their front yards! Man o man…Part of me begins to hate the thought of plastic until you see a family toting a bunch of plastic water jugs along with them filled with drinking water and a variety of other assorted necessities. I guess some are better at taking advantage of what they’ve got than others…some things never change.
We get to Bocas and unload our stuff and then load it on another water taxi to take us to Saigon Bay so we can unload our luggage directly to the house as opposed to walking down la sucia camina…more on that later.
So we were dropped off at the house via water taxi. The house was great. Basically it was open air. The walls almost met the ceiling…so the winds gusted through all the time (It’s all about the breeze, Pepper!). And of course the floor boards were simply nailed to the joists directly over the water. You could see the water moving by as you looked down. The nice thing was that if you spilled something you just had to dump some water on it and sweep it through to the bay! All clean…
The house was a 2 story, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom place. Really nice. We snorkeled around the house and around the mangroves spying on juvenile spotfin butterfly fish, juvenile French angelfish, sea stars as big as dinner plates, arrow crabs, sponges, minnows by the thousands, blue-striped grunts, snapper, huge feather duster worms, a stingray and even a juvenile spotted eagle ray! We found a couple of patch reefs up by the village homes and snorkeled around there too…great stands of corals and resident organisms!
To get to town you had to walk down the boardwalk into the little village that was behind us hidden in the mangroves. Then walk down their “boardwalk” (which was really just a walk made of boards if you know what I mean) to the dirt road, la sucia camina! And of course it rained which turned that dirt road into a slimy, slippery wet mud road! Very difficult to walk down! The locals, of course, had bikes…we did not. Anyway, you’d walk through their village to “the gas station,” which is what the folks in Bocas call it, and sit at the taxi stop and wait for the next taxi to take you to town for 60 cents.
The village elicited a multitude of various emotive responses from me. I felt pity. I felt empathy. I felt love. I felt indignation that they should have to live this way. I felt indignation that they chose to live this way. I felt loved by all the “Buenas!” and “Hola!” I received from them. I felt shame for previous emotions. I felt pity for them not understanding that just because you toss your garbage outside your house doesn’t mean it goes away. I felt then need to engage them about the Lord. I felt nothing at times. I felt pride (the good kind) that the folks there actually built their own homes. I felt honored that they worked some fine craftsmanship into their porches and windows. Again, Ali will post some pictures on Facebook and when you isolate the houses, they are quite nice! You just have to avoid the garbage in the foreground.
Anyway, we walked around town. Bocas is filled with tourists and with locals willing to play to the tourists who are willing to spend money. There is also a large hostel/backpacker/surfer contingency there which is interesting. There is also a bunch of good scuba diving!
We did a single tank dive one morning. It was actually quite chilly that morning. The temperature was down, the clouds were covering the sun, and the drizzle was being driven by some fairly sizable winds that just added to the chilliness! Combine that with the open air tiny speedboat type water taxi converted to a dive boat and it was downright cold! But the diving was great! We will visit John again as he spoke with us about combining some certifications with some education and some mission work around Bocas…good guy.
We took a tour of some surrounding islands as well. We watched dolphins “playing” in Dolphin Bay, we snorkeled around the reef in Crawl Cay. We ate lunch at the restaurant there. We went to Sloth Island and watched them climb around (yes, they’re slow!). And we went to Red Frog as well to Lava Beach and hung out for a bit before coming home. That was one awesome entire day of cruising around!
There were shops to be shopped, restaurants to be eaten at, pizza delivery to be ordered by phone (always fun), and more shopping and hanging around the house. Wonderful time. I will be back.
We left and went back through the mountains but this time we stopped in Boquete. Boquete is about 3500 feet above sea level and looks like a typical mountain town…combined with a typical Panamanian town…interesting combo! Nice place. There’s a lot to do and see there so we’ll have to take another trip there as we only spent a single night.
And then we came home.
We met some great people on the trip and actually made some contacts for further mission work in and around the Bocas area so don’t be surprised to hear that we might be going back there sooner than later to work with the indigenous there, the locals, and the English-speaking community as well. The Lord is needed in a mighty way, that’s for sure.
Be praying that we are used by God in the manner in which God chooses and not our own choosing. Pray for the people of Bocas. Pray for John the dive shop owner as he seems to understand the lack of the presence of the Lord in his chosen area of residence, and yet he offers up his services to us who live way over in Panama City if/when we need/require his aid in getting the Word of God to the whole world.
Well, folks, that’s enough for now. Just one more plug to send Allison a Facebook friend request or simply bug her until she gets pictures posted out there so y’all can see the awesomeness that is Panama! You’ll see cows, pastures, plains, mountains…crazy cool…
Soli Deo Gloria
Pill
