Coming to the end...or not?

This December I, along with 50 other volunteers who had arrived with me to Panama in January 2012, attended our Close of Service (COS) Conference, to prepare us for our official departure in March that would mark the end of two years of our lives.  It was an emotional time, as many expected departures tend to be, but more so because of the emotional roller coaster that had characterized the two years we had spent living and working in a rural Panamanian community.  Many volunteers had made deep friendships with community members and had devoted more time and effort than is perhaps healthy to projects that didn’t always work out as planned.  Some volunteers were excited to leave Panama, some excited about going home to family and the efficiency and convenience of American living.  A lot of us were sad to leave our Panamanian communities.  We were all sad to leave each other.  The last day, to find closure in the journey that was coming to an end, we sat in a circle and passed a candle around so that we could share stories or comments with each other.  As the candle passed to me, I thought back on all the moments I had stored as special memories, and as often happens when the end draws near, I was drawn to the beginning.

After our Swear-In Ceremony in March 2012, the ceremony that officially pronounced all fifty of us to be Peace Corps Volunteers, we were given a few days before we had to arrive to our new homes and new lives.  We had no idea, really, what was in store for us – the love that awaited us, the birthdays and the hugs, the frustration and the failed projects, the little successes and personal connections that would carry us forward – but we were excited about the prospect of the future and what we could make of ourselves.  So the day after our Swear-In Ceremony, we went to the beach to celebrate the completion of training and the big step we had just made.  As I sat on the sea wall that evening with the girl who would become my best friend, drinking box wine and watching the setting sun light up the water before us, we thought about how lucky we were to be there.  What a life we were living!  We were taking on all the things that had held others back for one reason or other, and our whole lives stretched before us in the sparkling ocean and the glowing horizon. We felt young and alive.  People had told us before we left that they had always wanted to do Peace Corps, but we were there, doing it!  And now, two years later, we have done it!  We made it through the hardest times of our lives and had experienced the best.  Despite the hair-pulling frustration, the sporadic loneliness and the inexplicable illnesses, being a volunteer also means seeing the world in a new way, living life with a new purpose.  How are we supposed to return to a normal life after having lived such an extraordinary one?

In answer to this question, many volunteers just don’t leave.  After the completion of two years, volunteers have the choice to stay up to two years more, working on specific projects within their community or in established volunteer positions working with volunteers at a country-wide level.  A friend who has stayed an extra year told me she stayed because she had learned a lot about herself and developed as a professional in her two years, and was ready to leave neither the country nor the opportunities that volunteers encounter.  I remember her comments resonated with me.  I wanted to stay too!  Not just because I love having fresh tropical fruit and vegetables in my backyard, and not just because I will greatly miss the people in my community and the slow pace of life, but because I want to see where living and working as a volunteer can take me, personally and professionally.  Extending might be delaying the inevitable readjustment to a life I have come to only vaguely remember, but in the right position, it could also be a résumé builder and a confidence booster.

Of course, in my case, extending comes with some complications.  I have already asked my patient and supportive boyfriend to wait two years while I run around in the campo eating mangos and swinging a machete for two years, is it really fair of me to ask him to wait one more?  Two years is a long time to leave someone you love to go solo, how would I handle a third year?  And of course, all my friends who arrived in my group would be leaving, how would my volunteer experience be without them?  So I decided that, despite my desire to remain a volunteer and my anxiety about having no plans in the U.S., in March I would return as scheduled to whatever life I would make for myself there.

A week before Thanksgiving, I went to the Peace Corps office on business and my supervisors encouraged me to apply and consider staying for a third year in the new Training Coordinator position.  If I took it, I would work closely with the office staff during the training that all Environmental Conservation volunteers go through upon their arrival in the country, providing my recent volunteer experience to help improve the training experience.  I would live in the training community to provide on-site coordination and preparation for the training sessions, including maintaining an organic garden, working with the school, and establishing positive relationships within the community.  And I would still be a volunteer, working on projects and activities that the community wanted to work on.  I would have to move from my current community to another part of the country, but I would still be a Peace Corps Volunteer living in Panama and working in a more official capacity.  To me it was the best of both worlds!

I wanted this job, but I had already set my mind on leaving and was quite divided on what to do.  My boyfriend, patient and supportive as he is, encouraged me to take advantage of the opportunity, as did my family.  If I stayed another year as the Training Coordinator, they said, I would develop new skill sets and have a solid three years in my first job.  I applied, but two weeks went by and I arrived to the COS Conference undecided.  It was there – when I discovered that seven of my friends were extending as well, when I talked to my supervisors and other staff, when I thought about how good of a match this job was for me – that I finally made the decision I knew I would make all along.  So as others looked forward to their next big step, I relished the fact that this life I’m living still feels as amazing as it did on that sea wall 18 months ago.

One year in site (March)

I am now a year older and a year wiser as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  When I first arrived in my community a year ago, everything was new, interesting and worth sharing, regardless of how much anyone wanted to hear about it.  I wanted my friends and family in the States to understand what Panama really means to me, what it means to itself.  I wanted to share the abundance of fruit, the different ways corns is prepared and eaten, the generosity of my community, the relief of the first rain after the desiccating winds of the dry season with those who had not experienced Panama for themselves.  At that time it was easier because to me these were all new, wondrous things.  Now, a year later, I take many of these things for granted, and so it is no surprise that I have slacked in my blog entries.

I have now been in my community for more than a year, meaning several things.  First of all, I have now come full circle, so for the first time I actually have an idea of what to expect from the annual community events and weather changes. I can now say, from experience, “how weird it is that it’s so breezy this time of year!” or speak intelligibly about what kinds of mangoes to expect in the next few months.  I can also recognize everyone’s face at the various Stations of the Cross that I have attended in anticipation of Holy Week, and I know who exactly will be hosting the annual fiesta in April.  It’s a comforting feeling of belonging, especially when my community members tell surprised visitors that “oooh!  She knows everyone!  You should see how much she walks!  Everyone loves her.”  This year has also given me the confidence to speak to people I didn’t have the nerve to last March (ahem, intimidating soccer guys for one).  And when I realize that I should probably be wearing nicer clothes than I am for an event, I say “oops, try better next time,” whereas last year I would have fretted for half an hour about how much people might be judging me.

Being here a year also means that I have less than a year left, making me second guess how I have been using my time the past twelve months and wonder how I will spend the next set.  Put on paper, my activities seem at once more impressive than they seem to me and less time-consuming than they have been in reality.  I work in the school three days a week, teaching English, helping with the school garden, and planning environmental activities for special days.  I support an environmental volunteer group that was started many years before I arrived and a bakery group that began while I was here (I am proud to say they have done an AMAZING job organizing themselves and are now selling bread twice a week!).  With the help of several dedicated community members, we have made bricks for ten different ecological stoves that will use less firewood, create less smoke, and protect the cook from the heat (now we are just waiting to put them together).  Finally, my pet project (that I have unfortunately had to put on hold for the past two months) is an environmental youth group that has a large amount of support despite its slow start.  And of course, I have helped with training for the new Peace Corps Trainees and assisted other Volunteers with their own projects.  Like I said, impressive on paper, but when I live it day to day I can’t help but wonder if I could have done more. 

One year really doesn’t seem like long enough, what with all I want to accomplish and how much I love this community.  I have thought more than once about extending my service and staying long.  Of course, I have been told by people who have gone home to visit that while they feel that way while in site, they do not once they have returned.  Who knows?  I wouldn’t be the first to stay longer than expected, but I also wouldn’t be the first to change my mind last minute and go home.  I do still have a year to think about it.

Feliz Cumple!

Luckily, my birthday coincided nicely with my one year in site and I was able to celebrate both in typical Panamanian birthday fashion.  I asked my host mom for advice on food preparation, only to be told that if I gave her everything needed, she would make everything for me and bring it my house at the designated hour in a wheelbarrow.  As I am no expert in making large quantities of food, much less Panamanian food, I was more than happy to agree and gave her everything needed to make arroz con pollo, and ensalada de papa (potato salad with beets).  It took me a week to collect all the materials needed, and as there is no store near my house, I was more than a little concerned I would forget something essential, like rice.

I was also happy that my host mom had volunteered to make the food because that day was the second day of our junta to make bricks for our ecological stove project, stoves designed to burn more efficiently and safely.  To top it all off, I had also been suffering for two weeks from stomach cramps and diarrhea.  Needless to say, I woke up on my birthday a little anxious at how all the events were going to play out. 

The night before had been the worst so far, as I had spent pretty much all of it with intestinal cramps that resulted in nothing but frustration.  Luckily, the day dawned cramp-free, and I tentatively got out of bed, hoping that the worst was over.  I called the Peace Corps Medical Officer on duty (aka PCMO) and finally told them of my problems.  You may well be surprised to find that I had waited two weeks to tell them that there was even a problem, but I knew that they would have just told me to go to the nearest approved hospital in my provincial capital where I would have received only partially helpful advice and an IV.  I would have also had to stay the night in a hotel, and truth be told I just didn’t have time to be out of my community for two days.  It was much easier to suck it up, eat white food, and hold out until after my birthday when I would have to go to the city anyway.  After being told what I had expected, I ate some white toast and headed to what I hoped would be the last day of our work junta.

The Saturday before, we had begun our junta expecting to finish all the bricks before lunch.  That was when we only planned on making bricks for five stoves, the number of people who had told me or my counterpart that they wanted one.  As the morning progressed and more and more people showed up unexpected requesting a stove, we quickly realized that we would have to finish the bricks the following week, on my birthday.  Of course, this time around, we had already made the hole where we would make the adobe mix out of clay, dry horse manure and creek water.  The participants organized themselves immediately, some going to look for more clay, others for horse manure, and others stepping and stomping the mixture to make a smooth, homogeneous adobe for bricks.

Unfortunately, I was still not feeling 100%, and after I realized that I was unable to contribute any work, I returned to my house.  On the way, I picked up the chicken that a friend had donated for my arroz con pollo and dropped it off at my host mom’s house.  An interesting fact about chickens – when you carry them upside down by their feet, they don’t move at all.  It could have been dead, except that I could feel the warmth of the chicken’s legs, its weight, the softness of its feathers as I walked along the highway.  In a few hours, this chicken would be nothing more than shredded meat, and it would be delicious, but now it was still a loud, bug-eating, living animal.

I finally made it home and spent the rest of the day lounging in my hammock, eating nothing and trying to recuperate as much as possible before I entertained all my friends and chowed down on delicious birthday food.  Since Panamanians are always late, I had plenty of time to rest, sweep and find chairs for everyone.  The day before, I had made chocolate cake with a woman in my community.  Chocolate cake is my favorite thing to make for my birthday, and since chocolate is expensive and not traditional in this region, I was excited to share this tradition with all my friends.  To my surprise, my host mom also brought me a more traditional yellow cake for me as well.  As more and more people showed up, I was glad we had the extra cake to give out to everyone.

In the end, everyone I invited came, totaling around 30.  I stood in front by the table with my two cakes and they all sang Happy Birthday to me in English, and then in Spanish.  My birthday wish was that I would not regret eating all my birthday food, and as I blew out the candles my neighbor’s daughters smudged icing on my face (tradition).  All of my host family helped me to hand out the food, which turned out to be just enough, and before they left, they washed my dishes for me and packed up the few leftovers in my fridge.  I myself took only a little bit to eat, as I was afraid about what my happen in my digestive tract later, but my host sister scolded me saying, “no wonder you are sick!  You never eat anything!”

I went to bed that night feeling the way one should on their birthday – full of delicious food and chocolate cake, and feeling loved.

And my wish came true.

Funeral and Day of the Dead (from November)

                I found out when I went to help my bakery group make bread.  They still didn’t have a bakery built, since the government is slow to deliver its promises, so we were at one of the women’s houses, luckily only a ten-minute walk from my house.  I arrived late – since the group was formed by a government agency and the women are pretty self-sufficient, my participation with the group has been largely supportive, and as my family’s visit and Christmas draws closer, my motivation has diminished to a minimum – and so the women were already forming the dough into little breads, braids and rolls when I arrived.

                “Se murió el señor,” the group’s president told me – the man had died.  I immediately knew who they were talking about, but she continued.  “Francisco’s dad.”

                For the past month, a man in my community, Sr. Cirilo, had been fighting an uphill battle with stomach cancer.  I had heard little spoken about it, though it was the topic on the back of everyone’s minds.  As a small community, anyone’s business is everyone’s business.  I only knew him a little, but three of his sons were in my elementary school and I knew that Francisco, a sweet but struggling fifth grader, was really attached to him.  He was one of the few fathers who actually showed up to clean the school garden.  He was a short, mild-looking man of about sixty with his right eye missing.  I often saw him walking to work, machete over his shoulder, and he always shook my hand with a warm smile in typical Panamanian greeting fashion.  But as I sat with these women, kneading out bread and placing them on the pan, I learned more about him.  The dead are much more talked about than the living.

                “Not two months ago,” one lady said, “everyone was saying he was the worst man.  Now everyone is saying ‘pobrecito, pobrecito.’  Why bother saying it now, now that he’s dead?”

                “He wasn’t a bad man,” spoke up another woman.  “He worked every day to provide for his woman and children, he just changed when he drank.”

                As it turned out, Sr. Cirilo was quite a violent alcoholic.  His first wife had left him because of the abuse, and his second wife, the one he had been supporting, had moved out so she could lock herself and her sons in the house as needed.  A while back, he lost his right eye to a machete fight with his son, who, they say, was protecting his mother.  The son lost his hand.  Machete fights are not long – a few whacks and then everyone to the hospital.  Of course, he only became violent when he drank, which he did a lot, even when the doctors told him it would make his cancer worse.

“Two months ago, he was the worst man.  When he hit Sra. Chila, everyone said he was the worst man.  Now?  ‘Pobrecito, pobrecito.’  If someone is angry with me in life, let them be angry with me when I’m dead.”

The next day, the whole community waited for the body to return from the morgue in Panama City to have mass and carry the body to the cemetery.  When there was a delay in the delivery, the mass changed from 2pm to 4pm, but most people had already gone to the wife’s house anyway to pray the rosary and wait with his family.  His family is one of the poorer families in the community, so his house was set back in the forest off the main road.  We walked down a grassy road that wove between pastures and fields and under mango, orange and guava trees.  After 5 minutes, there appeared amongst the trees a small hut with adobe walls topped with a penca roof of palm leaves that resembled a bad haircut.  This was the house of Sra. Chila, the mother of Francisco, José, and Juan, the three boys in my elementary school.  Sr. Cirilo’s house was an exact copy, but to get there one had to go down a slick, clay path, cross a creek, and then climb back up the other side.  That is exactly how they had carried Sr. Cirilo’s casket – by hand – so that his spirit could say goodbye to his home. 

By the time I arrived with my host family, the people who had been praying the rosary were crossing the creek with the casket to make the procession to the chapel where the mass would be held.  Everyone loitered around the yard, giving hugs to friends and family they hadn’t seen in a while and chatting about what traditions were customary at the funeral, as if they were exchanging a well-known recipe of arroz con pollo.  Jokes were exchanged, compliments on clothes were given, and slowly we began the return on the grassy path back to the main paved road where everyone climbed into the back of trucks to go to the community chapel.

The mass itself was no different than other masses.  The women and children filled up the benches in the front of the one-room chapel, while the men either sat in the back or waited outside leaning against the sides of their cars.  The casket sat in the middle of the aisle, a plain brown box with four decorated iron handles resting on two small benches, guarded by four candles throwing their warm yellow glow at the wooden sides.    There were the Hail Mary’s, Our Father’s and Praise Be To God’s.  The priest spoke about Eternal Life, God’s Mercy and God’s Will.  He gave out the soft round wafers during communion, which only a fourth of the congregation received.  The day was overcast, hot and still, and as I sat crammed onto the bench in that tiny church, I passed most the time waiting for the fan to blow some air in my direction.  Eventually, we all poured from the small chapel to the line of pickups waiting to transport everyone to the cemetery. 

The last time I had been to the cemetery was the Day of the Dead, at the beginning of November, when all the families attend to the graves of their deceased, cleaning off the crosses, pulling out weeds, dusting off the cloth flowers and lighting candles.  When we arrived for the funeral, those who had people buried here went to their families’ graves in the same fashion, making sure that the graves were tidy and orderly.  Since graves are grouped by families, most families huddled together in their respective lots and watched from afar as Sr. Cirilo’s casket was prayed over, sprinkled with holy water, and lowered into the ground surrounded by his huddled grieving family.  I do not know how long they stayed, but I left with my host family shortly after.  Now, once a month for the following year, people gather together in Sr. Cirilo’s house to pray the rosary on the day of his death, the 28^th of each month.  At one year, there will be a mass, and then the family can finally let go and move on.

Guna Yala Hike

On February 25, 1925, the Guna (or Kuna, depending on who you talk to), an indigenous group along the Caribbean coast of Panama, won their independence.  For years before their culture and traditions had been repressed by the Panamanian government and the Catholic Church, and finally they came together and fought against their oppressors.  Eighty-eight years later, they are still widely discriminated against, but their culture thrives and their traditions live on within their semi-autonomous comarca.  Every February 25, they remember their independence day through re-enactments, ceremonies and celebrations.

88 years later, I found myself sleeping on the concrete floor of a stranger’s house with 27 other volunteers the night before a reputedly grueling two-day hike north across the country to celebrate the Guna independence day on the island of Ustupo.  Before dinner a veteran related every difficult part of the hike, detailing steep climbs, multiple river crossings, and warning of no contingency plan should someone pass out.  As it turned out, all of what we had heard was true.  It was one of the most difficult things I have done (though not as bad as climbing up Volcán Barú) and definitely one of the most rewarding.  We started early the first day with high spirits, but as the dirt road cutting through pastures turned into a winding trail through the jungle, I began to question my endurance.  By the time we made it to lunch in Nurra, the capital of the Comarca Guna de Wargandi, I was a little concerned.  We had repeatedly gone up hills, without, somehow, going back down, and I was having a hard time keeping up with the rest.  Despite my best efforts to keep my backpack light (including a last-minute purge of half my clothes), the weight was slowing me down and wearing me out.  Of course, I was not alone in my suffering, and there really was no turning back now, so I took heart and sucked it up and kept going.

The trail was beautiful.  We walked among tall, fat trees centuries old and beneath a thick canopy of interwoven leaves far above.  Large palms and bright green leaves the size of a chess boards continually smacked us in the face as we trudged through the well-preserved forest of the Comarca.  We had beautiful views of the mountains looming before us on our journey, and the water in the river was crystal clear as we filled up our water bottles and learned to love or hate the taste of iodine tablets.  As the day began to close on that first day, I learned to distrust our guides, who, through a desire to keep our spirits up, insistently told us for three hours that we were only half an hour away.  So, when we did finally arrive at the river bank that was to be our campground for the night, I dropped my bags in the first spot available and jumped in the river without a thought for my clothes.

Within a few minutes, we were all in the river, washing our sweaty and dirt-stained clothes, soaping up and rinsing off, and just relaxing in the cool, clear water.  It was heaven!  The beauty of water, I find, is that it supports your weight and lets your feet take a break, and that night, I relished in it.  Eventually, we cooked an excellent pasta dinner (well, I mostly helped to eat it, kudos to the chefs!) and allowed ourselves to forget the trials of today and what was to come tomorrow.

Although we aimed to leave at 7am the next day, we didn’t get out until 8, as we had all probably expected would happen.  Today, the second day, I did much better.  I still managed to be one of the last people, and by the time the day was over I could barely lift my legs, but as the weight of my pack numbed my back and my hips, movement became mechanical and I could keep up a little better.  The second day we had to cross the cordillera, or the mountainous backbone of the country.  This included a steep trail infamously named the miranalgas, because on the way up all you can see is the nalga (butt) of the person in front of you.  Luckily, it was our lot to climb down rather than up, and only one member of my group slipped, sliding down in the half the time it took the rest of us to walk down.  For the second half of the day we traded out hills for the river, and spent about 30% of the afternoon walking through water in our hiking boots.  Eventually, our path led us out of the forest and into fields of bananas and coffee, providing a more level ground for our torn up feet, and finally to the coast.

We could hear the ocean long before we could see it.  We walked through mangroves, glancing hopefully ahead trying to see the ocean, which would signify the end of our journey.  Finally, it appeared amidst gnarled mangrove roots jutting out of the brown water – a welcome sight, if not as majestic as we imagined.  There was a boat waiting to take us to the island where we would be staying for the next three nights, but since the mangroves are generally shallow, we had to wade out into the muddy water to catch our ride.

The island was remarkable.  Imagine a maze of bamboo houses with bamboo fenced-in yards lining streets of wide walkways.  It was a city of bamboo!  Of course, this meant that the breeze could pass more easily through the houses, and since the roofs were made of palm leaves instead of tin, the island was much cooler than a city of concrete would have been.  There were of course concrete buildings, many of which were poorly built and subsequently abandoned, so that the island was dotted with two- and three-story concrete ruins rising amongst clumps of bamboo structures.  The island was filled with houses, tiendas, bakeries and basketball courts.  There was a school that went from elementary all the way to university level, two restaurants, a town center and oh so many children.  The traditional Guna dress for the women is a mola blouse, a skirt of fabric wrapped around their waist, and a bright red scarf over their head, and while all the older women wear this outfit, the children ran around in shorts and shirts, and sometimes less.

Of course, many of these wonders we did not discover until the morning after our arrival.  During our stay we would be sleeping in one of the dilapidated two-story concrete mammoths, and our hostess, who lived in the bamboo house attached to ours, told us which parts of the wooden floor we should not step on and showed us our bucket bath shower downstairs.  Spots claimed and a shower line formed, we were all prepared to eat, sleep, and save exploration for the morrow.  One of the wonders we did discover that night, however, was our latrine.  It is the custom of the Guna to do all of their business over the ocean, where it will be tidily taken care of by nature, so the latrine we were allowed to use was a two-minute walk away from the house on the sea.  The sun had already set, the moon was full, and the tide was coming in, so the leaning wooden latrine standing above the dark surging ocean impressed me less with a sense of security than with awe.

Since the coast of the island was lined with latrines, swimming was not really an option, so the next day I spent recovering my calories and getting to know the island.  While we were there, our breakfasts and lunches were provided for free.  We all arrived at the community house and waited as individual families came and took groups of 2 to 6 to their houses to eat with them.  While many of the Guna are shy, just as many spoke Spanish, or even English, and wanted to get to know us and what we thought of their home, their culture, and their celebration – more than once I was offered free bananas to eat.  By the end of our stay I had sampled two of the Guna’s main exports – fresh coconuts and molas, the handmade fabric artwork the women make of geometric designs and representations of nature.

Before we had arrived, my fellow hikers had mentioned that there is a high rate of albinism in the Guna, a fact that did not fully hit me until we were on the island and I saw for myself.  Apparently they are considered special, to have been touched by the moon or the sun (there was some disagreement between the accounts), and I had expected white hair, white skin and red eyes (the only albinos I have ever seen are rats and rabbits).  I was therefore completely amazed to find that the Guna albinos have blonde hair, pale or sunburned skin, and light eyes – in essence, like me.  If it weren’t for their Guna features, their dress, and the fact that they spoke Guna, I would have taken them for gringos.  How to explain how I felt?  I have spent all my lif thinking of blonde hair and light eyes as a normal thing, and here I discovered albinos were not too different.  After a year of being the only person not latina in my community, I finally had a glimpse into what my community sees when they see me.

The actual Independence Day was the second day of our stay on the island, and the morning dawned with a parade.  All the women wore their traditional dress, and all the men and the volunteers who did not have the outfit wore a red shirt to represent the blood that was shed.  We walked all over the island, ending in a yard where they re-enacted the war.  The day before they had played out all the acts of oppression the Panamanians had done against the Guna, but on the Independence Day they showed the Guna rising up and out-smarting their oppressors by attacking them on a holiday when the soldiers were all drunk.  The Guna playing the Latinos dressed the part, spiking their hair and painting black facial hair (the Guna themselves do not have any facial hair, an excellent adaptation to living in this humid climate). 

Once the war was won, everyone moved to the casa de chicha that held giant pots of chicha fuerte, or fermented sugar cane juice with cacao.  And the chicha was bien fuerte.  On the women’s side of the house, female descendents of those who had died in the war brought around small calabash bowls filled with the chicha to women waiting to drink.  The men, on the other side, had to form lines of eight and dance and shout up to the big pots where they were each given a bigger calabash bowl of chicha, which they had to chug.  As one can imagine, after about 15 minutes everyone, including the small old ladies and the towering gringos were having a grand old time happily singing and dancing around.  Since the festivities started early, around 11am the chicha ran out and everyone staggered away in search of a carb-filled lunch and a soft place to crash.  We were told the casa de chicha would open again at 4pm, but none of the volunteers were feeling up to it and chose instead a hearty meal.

The following day was our day of departure.  Method of travel: a 5 hour boat ride leaving at 6am, followed by a 2 hour car ride to Panama City.  Luckily, it did not rain and the waters were not as rough as years before, and I am happy to say no one on my boat got seasick.  We zoomed between other islands dotted along the Caribbean coast, some as populated as the one we left, while others were left inexplicably vacant.  There were a few islands that had only one or two buildings and a welcoming beach for tourists, but the majority was football-field-sized islands crammed with wild vibrant vegetation.

When we finally reached the city, I stayed the night with friends who wanted a good meal, a soft mattress, and an air-conditioned room, luxuries that we often do not get in our daily lives.  During the hike, a friend had related it to our time in Peace Corps – a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime experience filled with moments of misery.  Our hike was merely a more concentrated form of misery.  But more than once on this trip – swimming in the cleanest river I’d seen in Panama, partying with a bunch of tiny old women, eating coconuts and bananas with a family in a bamboo house – I thought with great satisfaction, This is my life!  I won’t get the chance to go on this hike next year, but if I could, I might be tempted to forget the concentrated misery and give it a whirl again.