Waterfall Slide and Other Updates

The rooster woke me up this morning as it always does and I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm going to have to deal with it for about 22 months more. Even in my own place I will have to deal with the 4am wake up call of my neighbors rooster. Do roosters sleep? They have to right? I think I'm going to find out when roosters sleep so I can sneak up on them and wake their ass up whenever their 4am might be. Teach him some manners.

It stopped raining this morning after 5 days of constant drizzle, downpour, and drenching. The sun has decided to come out which is nice. Its been unusually cold here and by cold I mean 65- 68 degrees. Enough to make me wear a sweater to sleep one night. Supposedly we can thank a cold tropical storm coming from the Caribbean for that which doesn't make much sense to me but whatever. The people here freak out when its this cold but I'm convinced that there really is nothing else to talk about. It's the first thing I say when I see someone here. Its the only thing I think of saying that is new.

Since my last post a couple notable things have happened. I finally met up with Juan, the crazy older man in the jungle that thinks that a 25k hotel project is a good idea. He is also the guy that showed me his extensive botanical garden with a cure for everything it. During his tour of which he just walked by plants and said “this is medicine”, I asked if he had something for allergies. He gave me a tube of allergy cream from the pharmacy. He also knew where the illusive waterfall in the jungle was so I had to meet up with him. We finally got a sunny say and we hiked through the jungle for an hour and a half while he pointed out things I already knew like what a coconut looked like and then we veered off the already unworn trail. Cutting through jungle and traversing cliffs and water we came to spot where we found a better trail that led right to it.

When we first got to the waterfall I thought to myself that I had seen much better in Chico. There was a really large sized pool that was deeper than you could swim and the waterfall was about 25-30ft tall. He asked me if this was the greatest thing I had ever seen and I nodded yes. We swam for awhile in our tropical paradise when one of the people that had come with us decided to climb up the side of the water fall which had just enough footing to do. That's when what appeared to me he slipped and went directly into the waterfall going all the way down into the water from about 20 feet. He surfaced and I asked if he was alright and he nodded yes.

Come to find out you can actually go to the top of the 30 ft waterfall and ride the entire thing down to the bottom like a slide. Only its pretty much straight down and you are free falling for most of it. After watching him do this I went a couple times and realized this was the greatest discovery I had found here. Juan saw that we were having fun and asked if I thought it was a good idea to build a 200k road to this spot so people could come here. I told him no and he looked off into the distance. I would later find out that there is a water project up stream where the government plans on taking about 70% of the river flow and diverting through tubes to another city. Juan also said that he already knew about this project which is almost done and knew that after it was completed that this place was going to be pretty much dried up. So I guess his plan was to have people drive all that way to see what used to be there. It is sad though.

In other news, I went to Bocas Island for Christmas and it happened to be sunny which was great. Spent most of my time talking with friends and family and going to the beach. Got to have some real food that didn't give me stomach problems and actually filled me up and I even took a hot shower thanks to the nice owners at Lulas B and B. I also talked to a couple from the UK of which came back to my site a couple days later to check out the Cacao farm. This is the second time I've brought travelers to my site from the island and we have gained some useful information from these visits in terms of what people want in a Cacao tour. I took notes on things we can do and after spending all of last night coming up with a rough business plan an pricing structure I think we can be pretty successful. Considering the pretty all of the resources we need are already here (cacao) I don't think we will have to purchase much and for the things that we do need, people have already started to get ready or build. The hardest part will be the logistics of getting people here and back from the island and then figuring out how to proportion the money that does come in. I've worked on the later one to great detail, and still working on transportation.

Health Report:

Allergies are back pretty bad and I'm almost positive that its from the fire/stove here. Our stove consists of two rail road ties put next to each other and the whole thing is inside so the smoke fills the upper room. There are no real closed walls so this would be alright if it wasn't so windy lately. They also burn all the trash including plastic which reeks havoc on my allergies.

Stomach is unsettled. What's new.

Red puffy Allergy thing above my eye went away. Every once in awhile it itches but its pretty much gone.

Foot sometimes still hurts but don't notice too much

Woke up this morning with one of my molars hurting like hell. I'm pretty sure its the one they said I would need a root canal on so I'm going to wait it out a couple weeks to see if the pain goes away like I usually do.

Mosquito bites everywhere, but hey, at least they aren't Bot Flies....

A Dying Man in Bocas

Their faces hung low facing the ground. The low light accenting despair on brown round faces. As the full moon danced between rain clouds showing its reflection of our world then disappearing, the smell of boiling lemongrass and smoke filled the air. The moon not able to bring light into this night for something unexpected and sad has become upon it. Just moments before, Solomon, my host father that is the same age as me, turned and looked at me to tell me the rain was coming. We were standing on the deck and as I turned to the forest behind us to see I could here the rain coming over the hills. The moon was still out as I quickly noted back to him.

It wasn't moments later that the night had turned cold and unforgiving. My mind already sour from a nasty cold that has left me feeling like my body has been filled with toxins. I can taste metal in my mouth and each cough makes it harder to breath. I came up the stairs to find Solomon and his brother holding his dad who also lives here, by the shoulders. Just moments before the old man had been walking around normally as he usually does (I distinctly remember him getting up several times last night to use the bathroom) and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Things had changed rapidly. The man had fallen and was unconscious, his diabetes taking hold of his body and not giving it back. As he started convulsing in a violent sweat filled rage, Solomon and the other visiting family members helped lower the man into the hammock.

Not understanding what exactly was transpiring I sat on the steps hoping this was part of something that could be fixed. Surely there was medicine for this. Surely they had called a doctor. Surely. Surely nothing. This is the 3^rd World. There is no doctor to call. There is no hospital here. There is only waiting. So we waited and the air grew thicker. Community leaders and family started to fill the room which only minutes ago was a room filled with laughs. As the sons and daughters of the man held him tightly bracing each violent convulsion the man gave unconscious groans. Each one sending a message that something was terribly wrong.

It was only when I noticed the tears falling from Solomon's eyes that I realized this was not good. I paced in the background searching my mind for something I could do. What could I do? Was I allowed to do anything here? We are told to stay out of certain situations that may effect our service here. Could I call someone and even if I did there is no way there is anything here that can help this man right? What if the advice was wrong and they blame his death on me? I stood for 20 minutes determined to stay out of it. I grabbed a pillow from my room to cushion the mans head and felt I had contributed. This feeling only lasted seconds though and it wasn't long before I was pacing to the wailing sounds of a dying man. Gospel music faintly playing in the background from Sunday service.

I couldn't help it. I called the Peace Corps Medical officer and asked her straight out if I could ask her a question concerning a person in my community. She said yes and I explained the situation. Lots of sugar and take him directly to the doctor immediately is what she said. I knew that if these words were to come out of my broken spanish mouth in front of all the community leaders and family that I needed to be sure this was what needed to happen. I reaffirmed what I needed to tell them and instead made the decision to have the Medical Officer tell Solomon herself just to get the message through correctly.

Solomon hung up the phone and looked at the ground while handing it back. No words were exchanged. Moments later water with sugar in it were being forced down his throat and I sat in the background hoping this would be the magic cure. It wasn't. And it wasn't meant to be. This was only a temporary solution to prolong his life but avoiding the hospital here at all costs was the goal. The people here have just enough money to eat. Nothing more and with the baby having gone to the hospital the week before due to amoebas, times were tough.

After 15 more painful minutes the decision was made and a friend from another community that had a car was called. I strapped on my headlamp, sunk into my rubber boots and grabbed a corner of the hammock. Even with 5 of us carrying the man the task still became hard. Sliding down the muddy hill and falling in the river was not an option at this time. I kept my footing and as the man continued to groan we carried him down the hill and out of the forest into the road. We waited faces down, quite as stones in the dark while more people trickled in forming a circle around us in the road. For what seemed like an eternity passed before the car showed up and after we lowered the mans body into the car it sped off with the two brothers.

I would find out via phone call from Solomon that we had saved his life. His blood sugar level was too low and the sugar we gave him helped. He is not out of the woods so to speak but it looks as if he will make it. They are still in the hospital.

I asked the house mother if there is a shot or medicine that we could keep around to give to him if this ever happened again. She said probably yes, but that there was no money for this. Even living in sub standard housing with little food, and no amenities I sometimes forget that these people really do have nothing. I was quickly reminded...

Diarrhea and Pink Bicycles

So I was riding the newly acquired pink/rust colored bicycle through the middle of Almirante, shorts sopping wet carrying a backpack, when I realized that I'm probably the closest thing there is to a living Forest Gump. I've done a lot of things in my day. A lot of stupid things that I've been just thrown into without the sense to get out of. I guess I can add this to it.

I left my site about 3 days ago because I had been sick for the 3 days prior. My stomach had been revolting against me and (sorry for the next part) I hadn't had a solid bowl movement in a week. I called the medical office and was told to take the 5 hour trip to David so that is what I did. After hiking for about 40 minutes to the top of the road and waiting on the roadside, backpack in hand, stomach in turmoil, I caught a packed bus where I was then smashed against a window with knees in my chest. When I got to David it was pouring and by the time I reached the hotel where Peace Corps volunteers stay my two dollar umbrella had completely given up on life. I was soaked. I threw my things into a room, checked to see what other volunteers were staying, and dodged taxis and rain puddles on the way to the hospital.

After giving a sample of practically everything my body produces, it turns out I had a head cold, a stomach virus, and worms. Worms? Yes, worms. Getting directions in spanish on what medications I needed to take and when became a task I gave up on so I had the pharmacist right it down. Apparently taking spores kills the worms which is great because its an easy fix. I do have to have to wait two weeks for the the worm eggs to hatch in my tummy so I can kill those suckers too. There will be no safe haven for parasites in my body as long as I have my spores.

I was feeling pretty terrible in David and on the verge of puking, but was able to handle solid food which I had been neglecting for a good part of the past week. You would think with so many mouths to feed inside of me that I would be hungry but I guess the worms weren't that hungry. So I ate delicious real food and washed it down with more medicine and rum. At about 2 in the morning I woke up realizing I had made a mistake by mixing the 4 medications with the alcohol and forced myself not to puke it all up for the simple fact that if I did I would have to go back to the hospital to get more medication. I made it and after a big breakfast I was feeling semi normal.

After receiving an e mail in response to the flier I put up around town asking for a bike donation, I headed out back to the Island of Bocas Del Toro. The bus ride wasn't bad. Only one incident where the driver careened into a ditch and then slightly over corrected on wet cement with an overloaded bus of people and a semi coming the other way, but once we got that out of the way it was smooth sailing. I was falling asleep anyways and needed to be woken up. My stomach was still boiling and my hopes for a smooth boat trip out to the island faded when I saw that the waves looked rough out there. Apparently there has been a storm out here for the last couple days. The ride was rough and my worms were pissed. They threatened to exit my body orally but I refused.

Once on the island I was better and after securing the bike from the book store I made a reservation at the Gran Kahuna as it was too late to return on a boat. I was also not about to puke all over my brand new pink cruiser. Speaking of the bike, I would like to personally thank Jack, the owner of Bahia Del Sol for donating it. If you come to Bocas go stay there. It looked nice on a flier which means its probably too expensive for me but I'm sure someone reading this has money. The bike needs some work. A new seat, back wheel(which I found out the hard way), and a chain that doesn't look like its been at the bottom of the ocean since WWII, but it will work great and I will be sure to send Jack a thank you letter when we are completed with project bike grinder.

After staying the night on the Island and coming the realization that being around people that are always on vacation might not be a good thing for my psyche, I grabbed a boat off the island with my newly acquired bike strapped to the back. Once again the ride was rough. From being sick here I lost 10 lbs and have only been able to gain 3 back so there isn't much cushioning for bumpy rides left considering I was already clean out of stock in the ass department. I got off the boat and swam through the usual harassment of people trying to get taxis for me, take me to Costa Rica, or sell me drugs, and I hopped on the bike and rode into town. I became self aware of what I was doing about half way through town after about 7 people almost fell out of their chairs trying to watch me go by. Almirante is mostly Afrotillian which could be a made up word but means; People that descended from the Antilles and were of African descent before that. Anywho, I looked more out of place than Where's Waldo at Muscle Beach and it was laughable. It was even more laughable when I got a taxi ride to the entrance to my community and when I got out the cab driver asked if I had breaks on the back considering it was a steep down hill ride from there. I laughed and said yes and started my decent.

The thing is is that I had breaks. Its just that the entire back axle froze up and then broke open spitting 100 year old grease on my wet pants and rendering the bike not only brakeless but possibly dangerous to be on. It seemed that the wheel was just going to fall off at this point as it bounced from one side to the other hitting the inside of the bike so I put both feet on the ground and smoked some pavement. I made it out fine and after trying to ride it slowly and having the seat fall off and a spring almost entering my backside I decided to walk it.

I got home and the community people seemed pretty happy about the bike. They don't have many here. The little kid here named Melvin was extactic about it and wanted to name it. Its name is Legend which is just was was written on the side. I think after some work we can make this thing grind some chocolate. If not, we are going to waste a lot of time and most of the money that the chocolate group has and I will probably never be forgiven. No, I'm sure it will work out. They need this more than anything right now and getting the bike here was the first challenge. Actually getting it to work without killing someone is going to be another...

A Dead Horse, A Party, And a Dug Out Boat

I didn't get good sleep last night. Solomon, my counterpart in the community and the person whom I'm currently living with, left the his television on and it started playing reaggeaton. The television is tiny and has to be because it runs off of solar power but it was still loud. I walked up and pulled the plug at 3am confused and disgruntled. That's just the way things are here. I brought it up in the morning and he shrugged.

It would have been good to get a little better sleep last night now knowing the day I had. There will be days here that lag and draw out like a long boring movie. (Have you ever seen The Postman?) And then there will be days that so much happens I can't keep track of what is going on. It's a roller-coaster with more downs than ups but at least there are ups. I woke up tired having only had about 5 hours of reaggaeaton-less sleep. Solomon woke me up and noted that he was leaving to start making the food for the party. He also noted that it was already eight o clock which is the time that I had said I would be going with him to help. I ate what I could of the boiled green bananas that had been placed out for me, put on a nice shirt, shorts, and my large rubber boots.

I arrived at the Artisan House where the chocolate group works out of and all 6 of the men in the group were already chopping and mixing food. I got into some peppers and started chopping away while yawning and thinking about how I could escape to fall asleep somewhere. We cooked gigantic bowls of food over open flame and after 3 hours it was all ready.

About half way through the making of the meal we heard what I can only describe as Indian chants or yelling and it sounded like a lot of people doing it. It was coming from the mountain facing us. I soon found out it was a Junta bringing a dug out boat from the mountains. They had been spending about a month carving out this 27 foot boat out of a tree way up in the forest and now about 30 men from the city where dragging it through the woods to the water. To give you an idea of how hard of a task that is keep this in mind. I walked to where they carved the tree out and it took me 45 min and I had to rest when I got there because it was so steep but that wasn't even the whole distance. Once they go to the bottom they also had to drag it down the street which is a 20 minute walk and when your going 5 feet at a time I'm guessing a lot longer.

I couldn't let all the men in the town work their asses off all day and just have me stand there taking photos so I jumped in. That's when I realized that this thing was heavier than heavy. With more than 30 of us pulling and pushing it was sometimes moving a foot at a time. The Junta leader yelled and we pushed and sweated and fell and kept going. I lasted about 30 minutes before I needed a break. Someone else took my place they kept going.

After cleaning up for lunch we all came back and laid out presents for the women of the group. The whole purpose of this party was to celebrate Mothers Day which was why all the men were cooking. When the food was ready we filled the large meeting room and started the presentation. There were about 50 of us total including children and the place seemed more packed than I had ever seen it. The men circled the table and the women stayed on the benches as the presentation commenced. Solomon lead the service and called upon certain men to speak about the event and they talked about how this day was for the women. Solomon had asked me to bring my guitar so I did. He soon presented me and I sang Say it Aint So by Weezer and told them it was about loving a mom and they loved it. After serving gigantic bowls of food to the women we also ate and then cleaned up. It was a great gesture for them.

A Dead Horse

A lot can be said about humans. I don't want to get into that too much right now but I do want to state that over all we merciless animals just like the rest of the creatures on this planet. Some of us are sentimental, loving, caring, mean, “green”, cutthroat, or clueless, but the fact remains that our existence is terrible for every other living thing on this earth. That said, the people here have about the same education level as a 4^th grader and don't know how to take care of animals in the least bit of the definition. The dogs are constantly on the verge of death with there ribs poking out and their tails always between there legs. The horses only eat the native plants which is terrible for their stomachs, and to see large sores on their backs is not uncommon. The animals here need to fend for themselves.

About two days ago we had some visitors and while we were walking through the cacao farm we came upon a horse tied to a tree from around his neck. They do not have money for a proper bridal or bit or anything so they tie the horse around the neck. We passed and I noted to the visitors that there is a high rate of horse death here. Today that horse died. Well it didn't die right away which was the worst part.

It had fallen and broken its back. Whether or not it had still been tied up like that I don't know but I have heard stories of horses accidentally hanging themselves here from it. We found out what had happened and went down into town to see what they were going to do. Solomon and I showed up to a big group of people standing around a large hole up on a hill and the medium sized horse laid amongst them. The horse was only about a year old and had never been ridden. It's life cut short by the steep terrain, lack of nutrition, and lack of education. As we showed up to the scene the 6 foot hole had been finished and the horse was heaved over and in. They had put it out of its misery before we showed and this was probably a good thing. As the corpse landed on its back kids laughed and one spit into the hole. I took a picture and more laughs came about. They started shoveling the dirt back in.

As the rich red dirt covered and filled the hole I stood thinking about us as humans and if we were “good”. This a long conversation that books have been filled with, but for this case I couldn't help but think about the irony in all this. The now buried and gone horse lay just feet from the church that the entire community diligently attends. Most of the town revolves around the church here. People argue about what the bible said and what it meant and what Jesus would do which is fine, but I think people here have missed the point in all that which is to be a good person. I guess I feel that people are so worried about pissing god off that they spend all of their energy on that instead of just trying to be a good person and good to the other living things around themselves. I'm going to stop this thought at that because an entire thesis could be written on this and much can be said about the positive and negative impacts of the church here.

In retrospect, I have to remember that this is the wild west here. These people only act how they were taught to act and have only learned what others have taught them. It is not there fault if they treat animals badly it is all of our fault. For me to come in here and start telling people to change would be counterproductive. I would loose the faith of the community and be cast out. I'm already skating a thin line by not attending church and not saying “Amen” before dinner. I'm not about to preach anything just yet. After we have had progress with the chocolate group and brought in some money which will hopefully translate into education for these types of things, I definitely try to find funds for animal education in this area. After today, I feel like it is something I have to do...

First Tourists and Other Notes

I'm going to make this short and sweet...

So apparently tomorrow I'm waking up early to help cook food for a party we are having. Usually the men don't cook the food so I'm hoping there are going to be others there doing the same or I will be forever cast as the week gringo. I told them I'm no good at cooking but that hasn’t deterred them from telling that they could really use my help.

Its been raining here for about 4 days straight now and a little sun could go a long way. It hasn't been cold but sometimes in the lower 70's which is nice at night and not so nice during the day when you want to leave the house. It's really not that nice when your taking a cold bucket shower. At least I'm not in the eastern part of the country where there has been such heavy rain that most of the Peace Corps volunteers have been evacuated and 10 panamanians have died because of the flooding.

I had to go to Bocas Island the other day to put up notes at all the gringo places saying that we are looking for an old bike. I also needed to print out some things for our chocolate group and work on the logo for the chocolate a little. I also figured out how to send stuff back home and sent 10 lbs of chocolate to the states for Christmas. The chocolate cost me 40 bucks and the shipping cost 45. I'm hoping it goes through customs without being ripped to shreds. It does look like drugs.

I met some girls at the hostel that I go to to use the free internet and they wanted to check out the cacao farm so I set it up. I figured it would be good to get some travelers in and get some feedback as to if a chocolate farm tour would be feasible. I met them the next day and we bought boots and hiked and saw a sloth and tried raw cacao. My host parents made us food and we made chocolate to eat and they ate so much that they got sick. Gringos. They were fine though. They slept on the floor on dirty old mattresses with one giant mosquito net and didn't mind it. They also bought 10 pounds of cacao between them and some of the crafts so it turned out to be pretty good.

It was nice having visitors, but it was also tiring. I don't know how they are going to learn enough English to pull it off. I'm thinking that we will have to make flashcards with questions written on one side and answers written on the back so when a tourist asks a common question they can just read it off. On second thought I would want my money back if someone did that to me. I guess I will have to find someone here that is English teachable.

Speaking of language, my Spanish has been slowly getting better. I have stopped studying completely which doesn't help my cause but plan on picking the books back up. When I visit the island it is mostly English so that doesn't help.

One last note, Christmas is coming up and my host family is going somewhere else. So instead of staring at the rain all day by myself I plan on going to Bocas Island to Skype everyone I know and pretend like I'm back home so get on Skype the night before Christmas.

Tomorrow is a big party for the anniversary of the chocolate group, Sunday I play soccer on the league Monday I should be going to the island to pick up a donated bike, and Tuesday I start building my shower. Shouldn't get too bored between those things....

Fidel Castro of the River and Chocolate Packaging

I've been a little more busy lately than usual. Last night we had an emergency meeting with the Chocolate/Artisan group and by emergency meeting I mean it was just a meeting that wasn't scheduled. We had to meet because during the last meeting I brought up the fact that we need to work on our logo for the chocolate packages and we needed for people to come up with ideas. So we told people to go home and think of some things and then return on Sunday night. There was also some cacao packaging that needed to be done so it was good that we were meeting anyways. December is full of holidays here and barely anything gets done so no more meeting were scheduled until January.

I brought my computer in and about half the group showed up and we talked about the ideas that they had. About 3 people had actual ideas. The others were confused as to what we were doing and most everyone picked apart the picture that I drew of a cacao tree. “There aren't that type of color cacao on a tree that big” one would say. Or “ We need to put that it is pure and organic and everything else” another would say. I tried to explain that we could change all of these things and they looked into space again. It's hard to explain marketing or aesthetics to someone whom has no clue what those words mean. I realized that we needed to take it step back and found a couple examples of pictures of products on my iPhone to show them. They looked into space once again and then looked at me and then back into space. For the people that didn't have ideas I pretty much planted ideas in their head. And by plant, I mean I handed them a sheet of paper with a name or design I liked and asked them if they liked it. They would nod and stare at it for awhile which was good I guess. At least I could get them thinking.

Finally the president of the group came up with a great design and name and I was ecstatic. I asked everyone else if they thought the idea was great too and they either nodded or looked at the ceiling. The design was a much simpler tree than the logo we had been working with before and the name was Oreba which is the name for the native strain of cacao in the Gnobe language. There about 50 different names for cacao in Gnobe and this is because there are that many types of cacao. There are actually more than that but I think they ran out of names. The family that I'm living with has a farm of cacao which everyone does and it is really not that great in size. They have about 50 different strains of cacao in just that farm and some of the trees are even spliced which I just found out. All this helps the biodiversity and also if one strain gets a disease the others should be fine. It also makes it hard to sell to a specific market that wants to know what strain of cacao it is. I guess you could just put “Every type you can think of” on the package. I found out that about sixty years ago government groups along with international farmers and other aid groups came here and planted every possible type of cacao they could to see which would grow best. They all grew best and are still here.

So after some time I convinced the group that the President had a great idea and by convincing, I spoke a lot about how this was a great idea because it was personal to them and simple and was a weird name no one would know so forth. They looked into space, the president patted himself on the back, I put my computer away, and we all drank chocolate with condensed milk and sugar in it.

The next day, today, I woke up and walked up the river to hang out in the sun. It was finally nice out and hot enough to go into the water. I needed a full bath for sure. The bucket baths are ok but they are so cold that I usually just rub soap on myself as fast as possible and then splash a little water on to get it off. I also usually yelp. The temperature here in my site is great. It is always between 70 and 85 degrees with a pretty good amount of humidity. During training on the other side of Panama it was about 10 degrees hotter and more humid every day. It was a big difference. I can wear a long sleeve shirt to bed here and I've actually said that I was cold on a few occasions. So it was nice today and I walked up the river and sat on my customary rock. There is a rock in the middle of the river in one spot gets a lot of sun and has a couple small waterfalls next to it.

After getting bit by bugs for awhile and taking a river bath with my stolen hotel soap I headed back to the house. I've been wanting to take a dug out canoe on the river since I got here an decided I would walk down the road to my friend Abdul's house to see if someone would take me. They have about 6 dug outs there and even have a huge one with a 25 horse engine on it. I found Abdul at his house and we grabbed some paddles or what were supposed to be paddles and took off. The river runs through the back of his house.

We paddled for about ten minutes when I spotted a sloth hanging over the water from a tree and so we took pictures or I took pictures and Abdul yelled at me for almost tipping the boat over every ten seconds. We paddled and I got to meet a guy that looked like Mr. Miagi who was paddling a dugout canoe full of dirt. He is the only person I've seen here that can not only grow substantial facial hair but a long beard at that. Abdul called him Mr. Peck and Mr. Peck spoke Spanish with a Spanish accent and could speak English with only a Caribbean accent. I guessing he learned his English on one of the islands somewhere. I also later found out that they people here call him Fidel because he has a long gray beard and that his full name is Peter Paul Peck and also goes by 3P. Weird. Anywho, we passed Mr. Peck and made it to the ocean in no time. We sat there looking at the islands and at the shit hole that is Almirante and I tried to get out of the boat and Abdul yelled at me because there were dangerous spine animals that would hurt me that I couldn't see so I didn't do it. It was fun.

I was getting hungry and tired and Abdul was just tired so we stopped at Mr. Pecks house which was pretty close to the entrance to the ocean. He arrived when we did and we sat in his hammock while he started shoveling dirt out of his boat. I realized why he was bringing dirt to his house. His land was once just mangrove forest which is a type of plant that grows in shallow water. So there a little dirt where he built his house about a million years ago and has been shoveling dirt around it to increase his land size. It was a good idea and I told him I liked his place. He got excited and asked if I wanted coffee and I said yes. We went inside his house which had tons of color and an actual couch in it and Mr. Peck handed me a semi warm glass of coffee that I had to decline for the fact that it was made with old rain water. Abdul and I boiled it and heated up some old beans and rice that had been on the stove and Mr. Peck shoveled the rest of his dirt. Mr. Peck also had a guitar that he wanted me to tune. I tried and found it impossible mostly because it was broken and it had the wrong kind of strings on it. I promised to return with a tuner next week and he got excited again and said something in English that sounded like it came out of a Jamaican.

We made it back without falling in the water which was a miracle because that boat was unstable to say the least. I thought for sure we were going in the drink. I walked home and worked on projects for the chocolate/artisan group into the night. Tomorrow I go to the island to find a used bike so we can make a bike grinder for the chocolate and to send people some chocolate in the mail. Its raining again right now so it might be terrible dragging all that shit out there but oh well. Next week I start work on my bamboo shower for my new place. I move in in 7 weeks and want it ready to go when I do. Til next time.....

Vampire Bats need to Eat and So Do I

I went to bed last night trying to get into my mosquito net without letting the gigantic spider that was under my bed into it. I woke up with no spider in site which was great. There did happen to be a fairly large vampire bat hanging under my bad looking directly at me. I told Solomon whom I'm living with now. He tried to kill it with no luck and it flew away. Guess it wasn't a good start to the day for both of us. I can't help but think he was staring at my neck veins all night just waiting for that perfect moment when I would leave my bed. Sucka.

I've spent most of the last three days sleeping and I'm going to blame that on the rain. It has been raining non stop here and apparently I was supposed to get some text message that said for Bocas volunteers to stay out of the water but I didn't get it. Every other volunteer in the peace corps got it but me. I guess I should give them my new phone number in case of emergency. The river here has been pretty big but I asked a guy if I could go in it and he sounded pretty sure that it would be fine. I didn't see anyone else in it and there usually is so I stayed away. Because of the rain it has been pretty cool which is nice too. I'm actually wearing a long sleeve right now. The people here freak out when it gets around 70 degrees. They think the world is ending which they already think is going to happen in 2012 because of the Mayans.

I'm in my new residence now which I mentioned before and the living situation is significantly better. Although there is a little kid that is constantly harassing and jumping all over me, he is pretty cute and I haven't got sick of him yet. His breath is terrible and he is usually all up in my face so I started making him use my mouth wash which he thinks is funny. I've also started speaking to him in random english words which throws him off a little.

I'm living in pretty much a basement. They all live upstairs and when I say they I mean Solomon, his wife, the little runt, a brand new baby girl, and the grampa who doesn't have any teeth and can barely walk. They all live in two rooms. I have the entire downstairs which actually has a concrete floor and a light bulb that runs off of a solar panel. It is definitely a step up. Although food is still a problem here, I will be heading into town to make sure there is enough for at least the week. One thing that is bothering is the smell. The horse seems to crap all around the outside of the bottom part and it seeps in ever so often. My bed also smells terrible now. My blanket has started to smell bad for some time but now my entire foam sleeping pad smells terrible. I'm guessing it is a combination between sweat and mold. I actually think its mostly mold because everything is starting to smell like that. In any case, I'm getting my blanket washed tomorrow and I'm on a mission to find anti-anything spray to kill the mold.

After waking up to the bat in my room I attended the chocolate group meeting and we ground cacao for some time. I was able to grind 7 grinders full which is my new record now. I almost passed out in the chocolate bowl. I hate to mention it, but some of the guys there were about fifty years old and they did about 25 a piece. One of the kids probably did 30. I figure that is why their arms look like tree trunks. I guess when we make our bike grinder their legs will look like tree trunks. So we ground a lot of cacao and then had the meeting. I didn't know it but I was including in this meeting as I have been in every meeting since I've been here. I was starting to dose off, getting sick of trying to understand spanish, when my name was called to the front. I stood up like I had something to stay and walked to the front. At this point I leaned over to Solomon and asked him what the hell I was supposed to talk about because not only was I not paying attention, but we didn't talk about me presenting anything today.

I found out that I was supposed to talk about creating a logo for the chocolate and maybe changing the packets. Both things that Solomon and I had talked about the day before in private. I gave a short presentation as to why it was important and told the group to give me ideas for one. Solomon then talked for about an hour and everyone seemed like they were over it. Finally we decided that we would meet late sunday night to come up with a name for the chocolate balls that we sell. I've already worked with a couple members to create a rough idea of a logo (of which I hope my friend Abbie will make better:)) We just need a name now. One guy wants to call the chocolate Chocolate of the Mountain, and another likes Chocolate of the River. Not too creative. I like Sloth Chocolate or Gnobe Chocolate but they pretty much shut those down. We will see.

Speaking of sloths I saw the biggest one yet today. It looked like a bear. On another note, I realized today that I haven't looked in a mirror in 4 days. I don't know what to think of that. I also haven't been eating much since there hasn't been much food in the community, and I hope I haven't lost any more weight. I've lost about 10 lbs so far here. I'm going to make an effort to get it back in the next couple months. I can feel that my facial and head hair are growing but that is it. It is kinda nice not looking in a mirror for awhile. I just hope I'm surprised in a bad way when I finally do.

One last thing. I've noticed a lot of government issued food bags here. All the families seem to have them and the government must have dropped them off when I was gone. I actually really like the government food and wish I was here when they dropped it off. I would have grabbed a bunch for my family. It is mostly dried soups, but there is this stuff called crema which is mostly like sweet cream of wheat but more refined, and it is good. It is supposed to have vitamins too which I could use. They give it to the kids in school and bringing a cup or bowl to school is required to get your crema. I wonder if I go to school and stand in line if I could get some. I start teaching classes next week or the week after that so I probably will. Because of the food here I'm inadvertently becoming a vegetarian. This is mostly because there just isn't any meat unless there is a birthday where they kill a chicken or a duck, and because when they cook fish here they leave it out for a couple days without refrigeration and it doesn't taste so good. I have been sticking to pretty much these wild potatoes that they eat every day and boiled plantains which if you eat fast aren't the worst thing in the world. I'm hoping to buy a 10 lb sack of beans in the city tomorrow. That should put some weight back on me...

Books, Thanksgiving, and Killer Turkeys

Every time I leave I either leave or try to enter the house the turkey living under it tries to kill me. Have you ever seen a real farm turkey? They are big and ugly. For whatever reason this one likes to follow me and make noises and has even tried to snap at me. I finally go fed up and threw a bucket of water on its head when it followed me into the shower room. That didn't work. If your asking yourself how could a turkey follow you into the shower, you have to remember that the shower, which is just some pieces of metal leaning against a tree with a bucket of water in the middle of it, is also outside. I told my host family that the turkey probably knows that we ate one his kind for Thanksgiving and is trying to get me back.

As far as Thanksgiving went, it was fun. I'm sure there are plenty of other blogs out there that explain the whole shindig down here so I'm not going to go into detail. Most of the volunteers went a retreat type place way up in the mountains where it is actually cold and we ate food, danced, talked, played games, and drank. I mostly hung out with my closer friends as most of the volunteers are pretty weird. I'm pretty sure they have been in the jungle too long. We had the suite and it had an upstairs lighthouse type look out on top where me and a couple other volunteers drank and played music. It was nice. Every once in awhile we would go back to where everyone else was drinking and dancing and talking, and we would get more wine which just so happened to be the cheapest alcohol there for some reason.

My stomach hurts and it has been this way for a couple days now. My host mom's stomach also hurts and I'm really hoping that it is not from the spaghetti that I made for them last night. It had italian sausage in it and it took me forever to get it here and finally cook it. There are no refrigerators so I had to wait around while it stayed warm. Really hoping I didn't poison the entire family with the one meal I made for them. They really liked it which was good but wanted to know where the rice was. Apparently they eat rice with spaghetti here. I told them that this was my meal to make for them so I was going to make it how we did in the states. They boiled some green plantains and put it in theirs. Go figure.

Going to the city and eating real food and talking on the phone with everyone is sometimes not a good thing. Especially when its bad news or things you just don't want to deal with. Not only is it stressful not being able to take care of things back in the states but it also sometimes reminds you of things that you thought you forgot a long time ago. For now I'm going to go ahead and leave that as general as possible. The fact is that coming back into my site after so much interaction between gringos is hard. Going from a place that everything is available to a place where this is no food sometimes, the shower is a bucket of water, and everything smells of mold can make you ask questions like “What the hell am I doing”. I can see why they don't want you to leave your site much and I don't plan on doing it much more in the next couple of months. I do move houses this week so hopefully that will be a little better. I will have my own room under the house and there are only two small kids in the house. It should be better.

I've been crushing books down here. And by crushing I mean finishing about a book a week. It is safe to say that I have never read so much in my life. Books are like currency down here to volunteers and the bank is at the Peace Corps Office where the grand library is. There is also a mini library in David at a hotel we all use and at the regional offices as well. Every time I find books I pick up at least two or three. If I find that I'm reading a book that isn't that interesting to me I put it down. Then after about 30 minutes of boredom I pick it back up and keep reading. This is good because I used to just forget about books that I started and never finished. Here I have no choice. Especially when it is raining which it is most of the time. I have found a used book store that lets you trade in books and is located only forty five minutes from me. This is great because I'm building up a collection of books I've read and can just turn them all in when I'm done. I could actually sell them to the book store but I'm not allowed to make money while I'm here...

Jungle Man and Tiger Hunting

I woke up yesterday with the plan of hiking into the mountains. There is a trail that leads up into the canyon and since the day I got here I've wanted to see what was that way. My community received a real road just this last year and before that it was a mud laden trail with sketchy bridges just the same as the trail that leads into the canyon. Where the pavement ends is where I like to go.

I started my hike by stopping at the little hut/house/store right where the pavement ends and picked up some crackers. I didn't really know what was going to be in store for me and having some backup energy never hurts. I ate them right away not having the will to hang on to them when I was really hungry and definitely regretted it later when my stomach started grumbling. I headed up the mud slicked path with my trusty knee high rubber working boots on. It wasn't long before I came upon a residence and was summoned over to talk. I explained who I was and we talked for a little while. I asked if there were any good waterfalls around and they pointed me in the right direction.

It wasn't 10 minutes more up the trail that I ran into someone coming the other way. I introduced myself and he did the same. Lloyd was his name which is my middle and thought that was funny. I found out he was hunting for Tigrios which are a type of jungle cat here that eat the chickens. He was a rough looking man of about 26 but had some hard rough years on him. Scars riddled his body and face. You wouldn't have known it from his demeanor that he had seen rough times though. I nice guy. He invited me to go hunting with him and we stopped at his house in the jungle to meet his family first. With a back of rocks on his side and a home made sling shot in his hand we were ready. We checked out what he called his botanical garden, met up with some other hunters and were on our way.

Now I'm not the type to kill animals for no good reason and I am what you would call a tree hugger too, but these people were going to do it anyways, I wanted to see what one of these looked like. We are also advised as Peace Corps Volunteers to not pass judgment right away because we may lose the trust of the people. So that pretty means that I can tell them about why plants and animals are good and we shouldn't kill them all at a later time when they trust my opinion.

We hiked up through the forest dripping with sweat listening for any sound. Nothing. After going through the cacao farm we ended up at the top of the hill that looks out towards Almirante and the bay of Bocas and noticed colorful birds. I asked if he wanted to kill those and Lloyd laughed and said no. This made me feel a little better. We walked the crest of the mountain inland through the forest until we came upon a huge pasture used for cattle. I had not known this existed in the mountains above my town and it took me off guard. What looked like 100 acres had beed slashed and burned here not leaving one tree. As I noticed about 10 or so cattle laying in the shade of a tree hanging over from the other side of the fence, we crossed the field and I now realized why the river might be dirty sometimes. When it rains there is no other place for the cow dung to go but down the hill and into the river. I made a note and we headed down the other side of the mountain where rainforest still lie.

Cutting through rainforest we stumbled upon a freshly cut road on the side of the mountain. Leaving huge tracks filled with mud, the bulldozer must have been giant. Images of it steaming its way through the forest animals running and trees toppling crossed my mind and we walked the road now instead cutting through the forest. I heard later that the road was just built for a new water project. We had been hiking for hours and I was feeling exhausted and even though Lloyd looked to still be fresh we decided to head back tiger-less. At one point during the trip back I was startled by a painful sting on the arm. I looked down to see a type of wasp they have hear and noticed there was a swarm of them now directly next to me. I looked at Lloyd and could only think of one thing to say. “Ow”. He looked at me and then looked at the swarm of wasps and became immediately more concerned with this than anything else. Lloyd wasn't much for words and so far nothing had changed his expression.

I started trying to hit the wasps off me and noticed they had started going to him too. That's when Lloyd looked me directly in the eye with a now more than just a little concerned face and said “We have to run. Fast.” And we did. Running through the forest jumping over barbed wire fences and apparently chasing a couple pigs now, my arm started to throb as my now fast pumping heart fed the poison. After about 5 minutes of this Lloyd finally stopped and we checked each other for wasps and to see if they were following us. It turns out these type of wasps are one of the most aggressive species in the jungle and will follow you for a long time. They were gone and so were the pigs that we scared. Lloyd got hit once and so did I. We pulled the stingers out and made our descent down.

After meeting with some other people living up the hill we decided to go to the river. Diving into not so deep water and climbing behind raging waterfalls are the norm for the people here and they were no different. Lloyd brought his pet parrot and small children we all swam in the now refreshing water. At one point I asked Lloyd about all the scars on his body and at first I just heard the word death. After clarification I found out that someone in a bar in Almirante tried to rob him and when he said no the person stabbed him 11 times and left him to die. After 4 surgies he lived. I wanted to ask about the slash across his left cheek but I will save that for another time. For now I like to think that he wrestled a lion death and a slash across the face was he got. This guy was more manly than I will ever be. Who the hell goes hunting for jungle cats with a slingshot anyways?

Also: After some discussion between Lloyd, his neighbor and I, I'm going to build my shower out of a type of plant called White Cane. It looks like bamboo but smaller and straighter. They are going to help me.

Also also: I probably shouldn't do anything too stupid because now the closest health center I can use for emergencies is 4 hours away by bus.

Almirante: Good Fruit, Bad Haircuts

I'm sitting in the back of a taxi truck looking through the metal bars at the ground thinking about my day. Its hot outside even though the sun will be down in four hours and the 25 cent vanilla ice cream I bought didn't help much. There is a man selling freshly hacked coconuts to drink and when a passerby buys one I'm jealous. The dirt stained merchant hacks with his machete into the side of the green coconut with the exact amount of force needed to split open a hole revealing the sweet watery insides. I want one but I'm already in the back of the taxi and my bag of groceries, laptop, and bag full of freshly washed clothes seem stationary too. Neither of us wants to leave this seat after wondering around this beat up town all day. This town of Almirante. Where Panamanian Caribbean dreams go to die.

This town isn't too bad. Its semi-homely feeling at best though. For what reason I don't know the roads here run parallel and don't have many connecting roads in between. My best guess is that one was once a train track and the other the road. It would make sense. This place was once the center for all shipping for United Fruit Company. Chiquita Banana is here now and the giant freight containers can be seen from most parts of town. Its dirty here and the houses are a strong wind away from being dismantled. Old wooden structures that look like they were built in a colonial period. Some have caved in and now filled with trash and stray dogs. Others have been pieced back together to withstand another day. Most are built around the lagoon that makes Almirante the jumping off point for the famous Bocas Island. The first thing you might notice is the brownish green soup that layers the water here, but once you also notice that the latrines are directly over the water you might not wonder anymore why it looks that way.

This place has seen better days. The people have been through a lot being brought here originally from other Caribbean islands to work in the fields and then left to rot by the fruit company. I'm still sitting in the back of the taxi truck and wondering when we are going to leave. They don't leave here until the taxi is full and it doesn't seem like anyone is coming. I'm now staring at the trash infested gravel ground thinking about what I accomplished today. I got to use the internet which is always a double edged sword and leaves me with mixed feelings. I learned that my best friend is getting married, my basketball team is still terrible, and that fill in the blank is having a bad day at work on facebook. My best friend Kevin getting married makes me feel old and out of loop, my basketball team The Kings being terrible still makes me not feel to bad I'm not watching the games, and learning that every hates their jobs on facebook makes me feel adventurous. The engine to the taxi starts and the cage on the back of the truck of which we are in is tied shut.

We are weaving around cars and people now in the streets of Almirante and I feel the sting from air whisking around my newly cut and shaved head. I had walked into the grungy barber shop hoping for a quick cheap trim. I left with my head shaved and the feeling that five dollars was too much. As hair flung into the air and hit the air stream of the fan I became mesmerized as how much like the movie Edward Scissor Hands it seemed like. I might have been a little too mesmerized because I ended up with no hair at all. He finished by taking a single razor and touching up the sides. I can remember hoping that it was new. I left the empty building with the owner/operator telling me that he would show me around town any time and that he knew some girls that liked to party. I think this around the same time I told myself never to go back. I didn't like it at first, but having my hair this short feels good. Its hot here and less of anything is better except if its ice.

The taxi arrives at the entrance to my community and I untie the gate and jump out of the back while taking my bags with me. The twenty minute walk to my community is going to be longer this time with so much weight but exercise is good here. Especially with all the sugar consumption. The walk is nice. The lush forest dares to take back the ground it once held and grows in every spot it can. Birds sing and dive through the air and everything is green except for the road. Giant bamboo stretch over the river and out to one another and women are washing clothes while sitting in the water with babies strapped on their sides. This place is nice. Much nicer than the town that lay thirty minutes away and much nicer than most towns I've ever been.

I look into melotina tree that I've seen many sloths in and find nothing. I guess they don't feel like melotina today. I later see kids eating the fruit and feel jealous again that I haven't tried it. Which brings me to my final point of this post. I like to try new things. If what I'm trying doesn't work out for the best then I've learned my lesson and move on. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger right? This whole experience is new and new things take time to adjust to. This forest, way of life, and way of being is all new. Sometimes it's hard to adjust. Sometimes I think I'm having the experience of a lifetime. Whatever it may be, I know that no matter how much reggeaton gets blasted into my ears at all hours of the night and morning, and no matter how many times I get sick from the climate, food, or water, I'm going to persevere.

On another note. We had a meeting with the Chocolate Artenesian Group about building a bike that can grind cacao seeds. I gave my presentation of the information and examples I had found and after a long discussion among the president and secretary of the commity it was decided that we would look for the pieces to build one. A couple things I thought to be funny was that it was brought up during the discussion that building such a device would be good because the women could do it and that the women need to exercise more because too many of them have diabetes. It was also brought up that one of examples was from Guatemala and if they could do it then we could too. Now the pressure is on me to make this thing work. The first thing we need is a damn bike which no one seems to have. I'm thinking about putting up flyers on the Gringo island of Bocas for an old used bike. They should give something back to the people they kicked off the land....

For the Love of Soccer and God

Have you ever seen the movie The Passion of the Christ? I can remember thinking that it wasn't that good or not as good as everyone said it was. I can also remember thinking that it didn't have much dialogue. Just Jesus getting his ass kicked for two hours. I now know that the movie is exactly that because I was forced to listen him getting his ass kicked on an audio tape of the movie while I sit in my bed and try to fall asleep. No one else in the house seemed to care which I thought was odd because the older boy in the house decided to turn it on right as everyone went to sleep. The funny thing about it is that it's not even in Spanish. What the draw of listening to a movie that is in language you can't understand and is mostly sounds of someone being hit and groaning is beyond me, but I can tell you that it was pretty annoying when blared in my face at 11 at night when I've already been asleep.

The 6am gospel tape to wake everyone up in the house was also annoying but probably at the same level. I can't help but wonder what it would have been like if the missionaries had never come through back in the day. I'm guessing the obsession with god and Jesus would not be around and the people would still probably wearing their traditional clothing which was basicly nothing. The missionaries told them to cover up.

So I finally got up and walked over to the kitchen area to find that no food was around. It was at this time I decided to head over to the hut store to buy some eggs and oil and I'm glad I did because I ran into a couple kids telling me there was going to be a soccer game in fifteen minutes and that I should come to play. I hurried back home made my eggs and coffee and scrambled out of the house with my running shoes on. When I got to the field I wasn't surprised that no one was there. Nothing starts on time here. Slowly people trickled in and I started to realize that this was a league game between all the towns in the area. I found out later that they meet every Sunday. After about two hours of waiting the refs and team leaders showed up and there was some debate over weather or not I should be allowed to play. “This isn't the team of Los Angeles” one of the Panamanians said. We worked it out and went to the field to practice. It was also determined that I was on defense. Probably because I looked like I sucked.

As I took to the field I noticed that my team had no shoes on so I did the same. After awhile of practicing the other team showed up and the difference between us and them became immediately apparent. Not only did they all have matching uniforms, shin guards, and cleats on, but they were good. They were passing the ball! People don't do that here. This was going to be interesting and I already wanted to back out but being the tallest and whitest kid on the field doesn't make it easy to sneak off.

I can remember thinking that my team was going to think that I was terrible and make me sub out quickly. This was before the game started. As I defended the backfield I noticed that as individuals our team wasn't bad, it was just the concept of the game that they didn't grasp. No strategy, no passing, no nothing. When getting the ball, my teammates did one of two things with it. Kicked it as hard as possible in any direction or dribble it until someone took it away. If it was a pass then it was almost always accidental.

I realized that I probably wasn't the most athletic player on our team, but I sure new a hell of lot more about strategy and after staying in the backfield for the first thirty minutes of the game with most of my team I decided I would move up a bit. For some reason we only had two forwards and they weren't doing much. This helped a lot and after I botched a for sure goal and then had an assist my team realized that maybe I kinda new what I was doing. The hardest part of the game was the fact that we were kicking shoes with bare feet. I looked down and only saw blood coming from my toes and decided not to look down at them again. I wasn't going to bail out on my team in the middle of the game. That wouldn't have been good considering I'm still trying to prove to them that I'm tough enough to be here.

After getting beat by four points our team retreated to the shade and we watched the next team. I was told I cad confidence and that I was a lot better than they thought. I told them we need to move the whole team up the field at the same time and pass the ball more. They stared at me and after I found out that because of a scheduling mishap we had another game in thirty minutes I started my walk home. There was no way I was in any kind of shape for two regulation games in one day and I hate to see what the score of the last game is going to be because my team seemed pretty tired and beaten up.

As I started washing myself in the river I realized that my feet hurt pretty bad. By the time I got back tot he house/hut I realized that my two big toes now had blood and dirt under the nails and hurt tremendously. I'm still trying to figure out how to clean them out without further damaging the wounds. I'm sure you will hear about it next time when I have to go to the hospital...

Update about the last post: I found out that the cacao grown in the region that I live in is the only internationally recognized certified organic chocolate in the Americas. So no pesticides, shade grown, natural fertilizer or compost, no killing of the animals, and they are supposed to have a reforesting project. I would also like to mention that I talked to a guy about a horse today for two hundred and fifty dollars with saddle. I took it for a ride and decided that it was a little too small for me even though that is a pretty good price and the horse seemed pretty well taken care of. We will see.

One more thing: I was dying of thirst during the game and at half time made the decision to drink the homemade sugar and corn drink that they were selling out of a bucket. I asked if it had been boiled and the lady said yes and then washed the cup out with looked to be river water and poured me a cupful. It was delicious and probably saved my life. I'm just hoping I don't pay for it later... 

 

Chocolate

I could romanticize the chocolate growing, harvesting, selling, making, consumption process but I'm just going to give it to you straight instead. I have to state that there is a hell of a lot more to all this than I had ever thought and how anyone ever figured out how to make refined chocolate is beyond me because it is hard. That said I guess I better start from the beginning.

Cacao trees or chocolate trees grow well in the jungle here in Panama and as I'm told in many of the other countries in Central America. It rains a lot, it's humid, there is shade, and it never dips below 70 degrees. As far as I can tell, the cacao production in Central America is almost entirely done by independent farmers and my guess is that it is just easier and cheaper that way. In the local town here of Almirante there is a cacao co-op that has been running since 1952 and is the oldest co-op in Panama. It is also older than the Peace Corps. I had the chance to go there today and it was a sight. They really do have the system figured out.

So here is what I know so far: In my community the indigenous tribe moved here to work for United Fruit Company or Del Monte or Chiquita Bananas. Pick your poison. They moved moved here about 40 to 50 years ago and it was just forest. They built houses/huts that were distanced from each other and which also had their own farms of mostly plantains. The people that were either brought into the cities of Almirante or Changanola only had the liberty of working for the big fruit company when they decided to leave it left the town in economic ruins. The native people here somewhere along the line switched their farms to cacao and selling groups were formed.

Along the line, big companies in the U.S. and Switzerland came and decided that this cacao was really good and since it is all organic, shade grown, and sustainable are buying it up as fast as the people can produce it. Almost all of the farmers here, which is in my town makes up 95 percent of the community, sell to the co-op and depend on it. The big companies are getting smoking deals on great cacao and the locals are getting some money for it and not burning down the entire forest to have cattle. Now. Is it a living wage? The rough numbers I've figured out is that it makes about 1 dollar an hour for the family on average. That combined with other small incomes from the mother or kids put the total family income at about 10 to 15 dollars a day for an average family of about 8. This is below the the international poverty line by at least fifty cents if you go by person and if there is a bad crop or a disease it could be real bad. Although most people still farm other substitutable plants and animals in time of need.

The co-op is well organized and has received help from other governmental organizations such as USAID which provided the people with the large air dryers for the beans. They also provided materials on how to protect the forest while still being able to produce enough cacao. The government here also helps the co-op stay organized and provides training. This is all good.

Like I said before, before I came here I knew nothing about where chocolate came from so here is what I've learned about the process: The fruit grows on the trees. You take the fruit off, take the seeds out and put them in some sort of dryer which can take awhile depending on how hot it gets and for how many days its hot. After the seeds have dried out or fermented enough they are either sold to the big companies to be refined or roasted and ground up to be used. Here they use the ground up and dried chocolate for a chocolate drink. Now. I have found out as of late that trying to make the kind of chocolate you find in the store is hard and involves equipment. Equipment that involves electricity and costs money. Both things that these people don't have. You have to pretty much use a machine that heats while grinding the chocolate in a certain way to break down the bitterness. Sugar is also broke down and added. Then the chocolate must be heated and cooled a certain way to be called real chocolate. I have looked up many ways of doing this and have found none that I could do here.

What they do do here is sell the raw ground up chocolate in balls to be used for baking or cooking. You can add sugar and milk and make whatever you like. It actually does taste like chocolate and some of the bitterness is taken away. Its dark, its natural, is good, and besides all the sugar, it pretty good for you. It also costs 1 dollar here for what costs 10 in the states. I'm on a mission to not only help them sell this partly refined product that others sell here, but to find a more sell-able product with better packaging and marketing. For the gringos mostly. We shall see what I can do...

In Search of a Hidden Waterfall

 

 A couple weeks ago Solomon showed me their plan for tourism. On the front cover was a picture of a beautiful waterfall. I asked where the hell this was only because I had gone up the main river pretty far and nothing of this magnitude seemed to match. Solomon promised to take me but we needed permission from the owner of the land that it was on. The waterfall apparently located between chocolate farms and Solomon didn't feel comfortable with not asking for permission.

I woke up today ready for an adventure. I ate my customary breakfast of one egg and chocolate drink and headed out for Solomon's house. Solomon's neighbor was hanging out when I arrived and I introduced myself not knowing that this was actually the person that we needed permission from. I later realized that we not only needed permission, but we needed a guide. As we found out, these trails had not been used for years and the jungle grows quickly here. The farmer needed to go up to his property to meet a couple of guys about cutting up a fallen tree of which he was building a house out of anyways.

As we started our climb into the forests located in the mountains across the river from me, I soon realized this was going to be hard. Not that hard for Solomon and certainly not hard for the farmer leading the way, but hard for me. The climb was steep, muddy and at points pure jungle that needed macheteing just to pass through. It was early and I was struggling. Checking my heart rate from my neck became easily done as my veins seemed to be pounding out of my skin. I didn't complain.

After about 30 minutes of hard climbing in rubber boots we stopped to my delight. At this point I had started panting and was now drenched in sweat. I reached for my water bottle and gleefully took big relieving gulps then handed it to Solomon who was now resting on a tree stump. He was tired but not nearly as much as I was. After getting the bottle back I then turned to our guide for hopes of quenching his thirst. Not a bead of sweat on his body as he looked calmly at one of his cocoa trees.

“Damn” I thought to myself.

This guys is pushing 50 and he is coasting through this. I would later find out that he does this every day as he has done his entire life. That makes sense. This guy is a mountain goat. He was leaving Solomon in the dust while he chopped at the jungle and casually walked over vines, boulders and creeks. I didn't offer any water as to not offend him. I'm 100% positive this guy could do the Iron Man and beat half the people and do it without having to stop to boil or filter water because he just drinks directly from the river or stream. He as also been doing that his whole life too.

The rest was over and I was notified that there was about an hour more left. I laughed and looked at our guide. He sat stone silent. It was not a joke and I need to get my head in the game if I was going to not die on this trip by taking a bad step. Solomon had warned me that this was a dangerous endeavor. Not only because of the high amount of deadly spiders and snakes, but because of the hiking up and down cliffs of mud and leaves.

Looking at the ground trying to carry each foot underneath and then in front of me in a mechanical way, my began to wonder which became a good thing. I starting thinking that if I had been placed in the Darrien Gap which some volunteers have been placed for the first time ever, I would probably be the person that got kidnapped by FARC or the military guerillas first. I then started thinking about the tape recorded ransom speech I would have to give to the people back home. You know. The one where there are two guys with black masks on standing on each side of me wielding AK47's that Reagan gave them. I would be cool about the whole thing I decided and just go along with everything as not to ruffle any feathers. Then when they wanted to speak in English on the tape to say something for back home I would switch into ebonics so they couldn't translate it. Well ebonics and a mix of southern slang an movie quotes.

I decided that if I needed to say yes to a question I would say “does a bear shit in the woods”? And when I needed to ask if I was going to be saved I would say “y'all comin yander ur whaat”? I would also say things like “I'm fixin to get all up out this piece sucka” and “ if there aint gonna be no one getting me and shit than Imma run like I'm runnin from da po po”. I would be a national hero and people would play my tape over and over on CNN because I was able to outsmart the FARC with slang . Then I'm sure they would kill me and float me down the river, but at least I went out like a badass. At about this time I realized that we had reached the top and I was glad. I was starting to see stars and needed a rest.

After the farmer haggled with the people chopping the fallen tree for a couple minutes I realized that the tree they were talking about was the one I was sitting on. This took me by surprise. Not did this tree look like it had fallen years ago, but it was now growing legitimate plants on top of it. I was dumbfounded and asked many times if this was the tree they planned to chop up. It was. Apparently the trees here are of such a class of hard wood that they can be down on the ground for years and only slightly rot on the outside layer. Just past the bark is completely usable hard wood that would cost you a lot more than 12 dollars a plank which this person was charging.

We moved on to a farming house at the top of the hill of which I was astounded existed. The house/hut lay on the highest part of the mountain looking over everything else and Isla Colon was in sight. We waited here for awhile for the farmer to haggle the price down more for the wood and my sweat filled shirt soon made me cold. After a half an hour we began our slash and move technique through dense jungle. Poison dart frogs everywhere and lizards jumping from leaf to leaf, the jungle was alive. After pummeling down a hill and climbing over a couple boulders we reached our destination. It was a waterfall and it wasn't very big. I sat there for awhile not very impressed and felt obligated to take a photo. “Do you like it” they asked me. “Ya, its nice” I said in the best possible way. I was dissapointed for sure and thought to myself that no one was going to pay a dime to hike this damn mountain to see this puny thing. They laughed a little and said “well this isn't it, there are many waterfalls and this is the smallest”. I was relieved and we moved on. We crisscrossed through the hill climbing and dropping down into valleys for awhile and after viewing a couple of the bigger waterfalls by now I was impressed.

Our guide saved the best for last and I could see why. It was also the most inaccessible. We slashed though jungle that seemed to barely hang on to the mountain as it was due to the steep decline. After ascending down a good ways we can to the largest of the waterfalls and I was impressed. As in all of the waterfalls, the streams feeding them were small but the length the water needed to travel before hitting flat ground again was respectful. This last one must have been at least 100 feet up and looking up at from even a distance one was sure to get sprayed by the mist. This one was different for another reason too. It seemed that half way up there was a pool of water that seemed accessible from the side of the mountain. I explained to Solomon that I wanted to swim in that pool of water and laughed. Once he found that I was serious he gently told me that we would try another time. That was probably a good thing for my legs had turned into spaghetti at this point and started to refuse to work.

We made it down the hill with me only falling once. That was pretty good for me considering my legs burned so bad I couldn't feel them any longer. The dogs caught an armadillo on the way down which was met by a beating with the blunt end of the machete by the farmer and we tossed it into the bushes for something else to take it away. Solomon invited me for lunch and we talked about tourism and the costs and benefits of exchanging time to lead them to the waterfall for time working in the farm. I learned that the good farmers here make about 2 dollars an hour and bad ones make about fifty cents an hour. We both decided that leading groups into the jungle would be a good investment and I spooned over the chicken necks laying on my bed of rice. It was one thirty in the afternoon and I was ready for a nap. And that is what I got....