Tag Archives: Chitre

Under Construction, Literally UPDATED (finally)!

17 Jul

We have spent the better part of last week tiling. Actually, the better part of the last two weeks tiling. Literally, minimum 10 hour days, every day since late June. This means that, as you can tell, this post is unfinished. When you start work at 8 am and finish at 10 pm and the site doesn’t have Internet… Anyways, we are (hopefully) going to finish up the current job by Friday. And then I will make sure to not only get Internet, but also write a post!

Until then enjoy my notes from our first tile job and H’s organized photos of our adventures. She always seems to have her act more together than me!

Updated sometime in July (we have no concept of time any longer, except that the Olympics start this week!!!):

We are going to think of our first tiling adventure as a definite learning experience. We had always been the helpers for M and F during previous tile work, and this was our first experience being the ones who “knew stuff” about tiles. Turns out we remembered quit a bit about tiling, but knowing how to translate that knowledge into Central American availability of supplies was a bit of a challenge to say the least.

Our boss often fluctuated between sleeping, being drunk, being hungover, being highly caffeinated, and a last category that we can’t seem to figure out… (not our favorite mood for sure) meant that H and I were responsible for the entire tile process, and yet were not allowed to make any decisions on how it was to be done unless we first got clearance from the boss… Not an easy task! But in the end, the tiles were pretty and I hope that all parties involved were happy.

20120717-214419.jpg

20120717-214432.jpg

20120717-214442.jpg

20120717-214450.jpg

20120717-214457.jpg

20120717-214513.jpg

20120717-214521.jpg

What consumed most of our time in this whole process was definitely shopping for tiles. Apparently shopping for supplies in Central America is an entire process requiring multiple stores, tons of pricing, and asking the same question over and over hoping they are just too lazy to check. You see, not all the tiles on display are in stock in that color (or at all in some cases), there are many tiles that are there that are not on display at all, and no one seems to know which tiles are which because boxes of supplies are piled about the store in no particular fashion. We actually spent some serious time going through piles of tile boxes seeing if all the tiles in the open box were the same style and color and if any unopened boxes possibly we’re hiding our tile choices.

The most difficult was the physical space we were working in, which was a building from the 1930’s, before they had levels and other modern measuring tools. That meant that all of the spaces (walls, floors, sinks, etc.) were sort of going whichever way they could. We were also not allowed to remove any of the flooring or fixtures already in the bathrooms because a) our boss didn’t want to spend the time demo-ing and b) everything was literally cemented in place.

Yes, that means that instead of using the little screw to keep the toilet where it needs to be, they slap cement on it down here and just sledgehammer everything out if there are any problems. Also, walls are patched with chunks of cement, as are any broken or missing floor tiles. So H and I had to literally beat the floor with a hammer to get a rough enough surface for our tiles to stick to, and then work around all the crazy fixtures and globs of cement in the rooms.

We were most serious about the planning process in all of this work, and H and I spent hours laying tiles out in various positions. We came up with some really awesome patterns, but our goal was always to make it as consistent and easy to cut around the before mentioned issues. We were working in the theme of Marilyn Monroe (each room has a theme person, which is kind of cool) and we had diamonds and pink and wonderful pretty moasics at the end of it all.

My designated position in the process was cutting tiles. My tool? A hand held spinning death trap! (i did in fact wear G’s leather protective gloves when i started) I will tell you that I was honestly terrified of that contraption, but the adrenaline rush after each cut made was AMAZING! I will definitely have one of those of my own one day! The machine did electricute both H and I at different times, and broke down so that we had to pry it open and play with the little wires with our swiss army knife, which felt so perfectly normal on a roof in Central America. My cuts were not perfect by any means, and going through to refine them to fit our arrangements and mentioned space issues was stressful for sure.

Some tips we have learned after our first tile job: always explain to your boss that things in Central America will take at least 3 times longer to get done than in the States, hand mixing cement is a lot like making rice, and always make sure to get a photo of the finished product before your crazy employer kicks you out in a hung over flurry.

Tags: , ,

When God strikes…

3 Jul

Our family has all migrated back north and left the two of us here, alone in Central America. It’s funny how used to traveling in a larger group we had become, we almost didn’t remember just how much time we need to spend in grocery stores or what the world is like down here without air conditioning (it’s hot… Really, really, really melt-your-eyeballs hot). But we’re adjusting, a little bit at a time (and trying to spend anytime between 11am and 2pm in the shade, preferably in front of a fan).

We put G in a cab headed for the airport (with the price already negotiated; it’s so nice to be able to know these things in advance!) and then wrangled up some of our newly-made friends at Panama by Luis to all go get lunch before we headed to our next work/volunteer adventure.

We didn’t quite make it in time for the bus we had hoped to catch, and instead of rolling into Chitre in the evening we arrived at around 11pm, in a flurry of fireworks. As it turns out Chitre, and actually the Azuero Peninsula in general, is the fiesta center of Panama. You see, Panama likes to party. A lot. And the Azuero Peninsula seems to have decided that if one is going to work Monday through Friday than every weekend should probably have a giant fiesta somewhere on the peninsula complete with street parades, cowboys racing full speed on horseback, salsa dancing in the middle of the street, fireworks shot out of hand-held tin cans, devils scaring children, competitions to see whose modified car sound system can play the loudest, live bands, bouncy houses, and lots and lots and lots of beer. And rum. And contraband.

And it’s just as much slightly-terrifying fun as it sounds! We had arrived (as planned, H had done her research) in time for Chitre’s official saint’s (San Juan Bautista) celebration. Saturday night was the pre-festivities warm up, or really just an excuse to be drunk and in public with fireworks. On Sunday, we started our job at Miami Mike’s Backpackers Hostel by watching the festivities take place right below the balcony! It rained and put a bit of a damper on the end of the night’s revelry, but it was an epic party none-the-less.

20120703-163615.jpg

20120703-163702.jpg 20120703-163720.jpg 20120703-163728.jpg

In fact, it was so epic that first thing in the morning on Monday there was a huge lightening storm. Now, it doesn’t rain very often here, even in the rainy season. And especially not in the morning. But the day after this huge festival there was literally a river running down the main street, full up to the sidewalk and lightening hovering over town, deafening all those poor souls with a bit of a hangover. And then a large bolt lit up against the sky, and one of the bell towers of San Juan Bautista’s church caught the end of the fork. The more-than-a-century old tower crumbled to the ground and the storm immediately calmed. Very impressive. Someone had to be rushed to the hospital, the police had to close down the street due to all the rubble, and the townspeople began to murmur about wether God was punishing the drunk Catholics, or if it was because the fiesta had been sponsored and changed to support a local politician this year (it may have been also that the fireworks and general mayhem put a lot of particulates into the air, and the tower had a lightening rod, and it was really old… But these things are not as interesting). In any case, we witnessed history! People will talk about this for YEARS!

20120703-165332.jpg 20120703-165341.jpg

Last week we stayed at Miami Mike’s to give it some of our TLC. We feel like we were fairly productive: cleaning, painting a guest room in Rastafarian theme, taking a trip to the nearby beach to organize and find contacts for clean-up and snorkeling trips, cleaning, pricing and buying fabric to make a flag and curtains, making necessary runs to pick the boss up some beer, cleaning, painting a closet in the Che room black, organizing the bookshelves, cleaning, planning and pricing tile (to put new floors in the bathrooms), fishing for tourists at the bus stop, cleaning, guerrilla-glueing fans back together, oh! and more cleaning.

Things got a bit dicey as H and I both got hormonal (I may or may not have flipped out at more than one point…) in this unbearable heat. Our “shifts” are meant to run back to back from 11-3 and then from 3-7, but since neither of us are willing to subject ourselves alone to the constant honks, whistles, pssts, “hey baby, come here!”, and such that seem to accompany the male ego here in Latin America once the temperature gets out of control, we have both been at it for the full time, every day. We have been able to get a lot of things done, which is nice.

Also, we earned the weekend (Sunday and Monday) off, which is awesome (more about that trip to come shortly)! But this week is all about our adventures in Latin American tiling. Let’s just say that H and I are both terrified of the “tile cutter”, and will be wielding a huge hammer and nail to score the existing tile, which was deemed too much work to remove first. Epic. Terrifying. Good times! Stay tuned!

Tags: , , ,