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.
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!
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!
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Rule #2: Don't Die. 