Still Afloat

After such a long hiatus from posting to this blog I've been feeling a little writer's block. So instead of trying to talk about all the things I've been up to I'm just going to  break the ice again with a little snapshot of my life in Peace Corps Panama ,

  I took a few days away from my home in Bahía Azul and paddled across the bay where a trail leads over to a community called Playa Balsa, where my fellow volunteer and very good friend Charles lives. It's also one of the most stunningly beautiful places you could ever hope to visit, let alone live and work.

    This wasn't a vacation though. I went to help out with construction of a small water storage tank for an aqueduct the town is building. The local men had already done some of the hardest physical work you can imagine, hauling tons of rock, sand, rebar and cement through treacherously muddy forest trails and up the steep hills|to where the the water tank was to be built. Making this hike empty handed left me winded, so loading a 95 pound bag of cement into a chakara and strapping it to my head like the muchachos were doing never even entered my mind.

We broke ground and started setting up forms, and some girls carried a bucket of water up from a nearby stream to make chicha to drink.

 Each day while we worked with a crew of men on the hilltop, women were preparing lunch down in town.

 Boiled green bananas with rice and little sardines might not be considered gourmet cuisine, but it certainly is filling

The work days were long and hard, but the tank construction went great. The rains came and went with fortuitous timing and we got the foundation , floor, and first level of walls all poured as planned.

The day I was heading for home, clouds moved in and I walked the forty five minutes back to the bay in a steady warm rain that was drenching, but at the same time welcome. Another forty minutes of paddling and I was back home, back in my hut, relaxing in my hammmock, weary but satisfied,  warmed by a nice glass of rum and the images of loved ones in the glow of the candles, very, very happy to still be afloat here in Panama.