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....
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