Confused and tired I stepped onto the boat taxi as me and two other locals left from Bocas island going back to the main land. It only struck me what kind of day it would be as we pulled into dock in Almirante to see the crowds trying to get onto boats to the island. Thousands of eager beer thirsty Panamanians and Costa Ricans bulging at the seems to party for the weekend spilled into every crevasse of every boat dock. I was on a different mission. Having been on the island for a couple days with our Oreba Chocolate stand I was now needed back in my community for a much anticipated visit from the US Ambassador to Panama.
Halfway back to my community I realized that I forgot the key to my house. The thought of only having 5 minutes to break my door with a borrowed hammer and then walking 45 min to the street wasn’t my idea of a good start to the day but that’s what I did. Waiting by the road for 20 minutes I could not help but think how full circle everything has come. I’ve gone from locking myself in a room in my host family’s house thinking that two years of this could be equivalent to doing 5 years of hard in prison to being proud of the work I’ve done, proud of the people I’ve gotten the chance to work with and got close to, and proud to receive someone so notable as the Ambassador. They soon picked me up in on of their armored suburbans and off we went. Ambassador Farrar and his wife was inexplicably nice and open for being so important and for amount of time they have spent working as representatives for the US. Their last post was in Cuba and you can imagine the level of importance that post was. Although with the importance of the Panama canal this post might be even more important.
My community members and I gave them the quick tour of what we do and seeing them dressed up for the visit was great. We took pictures, we laughed, the Ambassadors wife took home some orchids and chocolate and made me an origami elephant out of a dollar bill, and we went into Almirante to visit the cacao co-op. I had warned the co-op that we would be coming this day and I didn’t really think much of it. I was under the impression that I would just be showing the Ambassador around a little and then we would leave. When the president of the co-op mentioned that he was going to propose funding for a project they had I told him that he might want to keep that to himself as the Ambassador wouldn’t have time for it. I was real wrong. When we showed up we were whisked into a large room with a huge circular table. As we sat down people served us hot chocolate I realized that this was pretty important to them. I guess I just didn't think about it before. Introductions were made, the co-op people stood up and talked about themselves for an uncomfortably long amount of time and the request for funds documents were handed over. My favorite part of the meeting had to be when one of the Afro-Antillian members started reciting the Gettysburg Address to the Ambassador. When that started I looked over at his assistant and we both started laughing.
After going to cocaba (the co-op) we went to the only reasonably acceptable place to eat in Almirante which is a chinese restaurant. We met up with a couple other volunteers and the food was good. I then waited on the road for the president of Engineers Without Borders to come pick me up and take me back to my site so I could show them around and show them the projects I had been working on. It was a long day and after I barely was able find space on a boat going back to the island I almost immediate fell asleep. MIssion accomplished.
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