Back to the Grind

Things are returning to normal here, insofar as anything is "normal" in Panama. The Christmas holidays, during which businesses were open sporadically, was followed in mid-January by the annual Coffee and Flower Fair here in Boquete, an event of countrywide importance. The town was crowded with visitors, traffic was snarled moreso than usual, and everything was made more hectic by the outage of one of the main bridges from the flood. The fairgrounds had been flooded, and there was talk of cancelling the fair. But recognizing its economic importance to the community, heroic efforts were undertaken to restore it in time for the grand opening. It closed this past weekend, leaving what appears to be an insurmountable amount of litter. We should be in for about two weeks of tranquility until Carnaval convenes, and the entire country essentially shuts down for a week, sometime around February 9th. I remember the date because it was going on when we first arrived in Panama, delaying the shipping of our cargo from Panama City to Boquete for a full week--during which time we had to pay for its storage!

We are without a housekeeper for a while as Demaris had an emergency appendectomy a little over a week ago. She had been at work that day and complained vaguely of stomach pain. The following morning Juvenal showed up to report that they had traveled by taxi to the public hospital in David early the previous evening and that the surgery had been performed about 2:00 a.m. She was released less than two days later--much too soon. I was on my way to David to visit her when I received a call that she was being discharged that day. So, after an interminable wait for medications, the payment of the bill, disconnection of her IV, etc., I transported her and her mother--plus a friend and her daughter who were visiting--back to Boquete. She has developed a subsequent infection--not surprising given the looks of the hospital--and is likely to be a while recovering. There are two excellent hospitals in David, but Hospital Regional, the public one for persons without insurance, is not one of them. We're helping with trips to the doctor, food, and some money until the family gets back on its feet.

The weather was awful for many days after the flood, so we didn't get a chance to really look around. When we did, we were horrified to discover that the river behind our house took a chunk of our property and our next-door neighbors'. What was once a tropical jungle, filled with trees and laden with orchids and bromeliads and gingers, is now a huge pile of rocks that swept down the mountains. Our plan for constructing a fancy set of of suspended stairs and platforms down to the river has been trashed, and the neighbors' lovely paths and rock stairs though a pine grove were swept away. We're just glad we hadn't gotten that far with our plans and that our property is high enough above the river that we weren't flooded. The problem of too much water was exacerbated by a landslide on the coffee farm on the opposite side of the river, but, inasmuch as the coffee farm is owned by the immediate past President of Panama, I don't anticipate any recompense.

Getting plants and fish in the newly-constructed fish pool has been on hold because of Steve and family's lengthy holiday trip to the U.S. and Canada. They've returned but have been embroiled in personal issues and in the landscaping he has been doing for Cielo Paraiso. I'm beginning to regret that I introduced him to Raideep and Colleen, the developers, as now I'm competing with them for his time. He's installing solar power at their property in Chorcha, after learning that it would cost roughly $60,000 to run electric lines and poles there. The installation of solar power equipment, of course, has presented its own set of problems about which he has been very vocal.

One bright spot in the last few weeks has been my becoming friends with Lulu, the proprietor of Lulu's Tropical Gardens in David, a plant nursery. Steve and I had purchased quite a few plants there, but I had met her only in passing. On a visit last week, though, she was at the nursery and, when I inquired about certain plants I needed, invited me to come with her to her house to see her nursery stash. She is married to the principal neurosurgeon at Hospital Chiriqui, so her house and garden was something to behold. We spent about two hours there, carefully going through the house, gardens, fish pond, and nursery, as well as meeting her dogs (a long-haired chihuahua, a weimereiner, and a great dane) cats, macaw, and son (who recently graduated from Purdue). Her enthusiasm for gardening matches mine, so it was lovely visit. THIS is a friendship I can use. As a bonus, I like her very much.