A Little Help from My Friends

Moving sawdust from the sawmill

First team to finish the gutters that will catch rain

32 great students from USC Hayward came to Ipeti to help finish the Banos, followed by another group of 28 from UC Irvine. The first session got rained out. The second session got cancelled due to a missed flight from Houston. Finally, on the third session, we had a wonderful and productive day, They dug drain fields, made and installed clothes pegs, scoops, squirt bottles and plumbing They also moved a truckload of sawdust and manufactured some much needed air release vales for the water system. Kudos to these great kids for their caring, time and energy. Then the final session, it also rained, but no heavy. So, the kids soldiered on in trash bag raincoats and managed to get a little something done. I think I recruited several Peace Corps volunteers – they liked what they experienced and want MORE !!

FINALLY. Found a parrot that would stay still long enough to get a photo, even video. While its cousins flew overhead. From the looks of the feathers, I don't think this bird is well. Here is the video link. Just click on it

https://youtu.be/beNnfIiz3xI

Good Dogs go to Heaven. Bad dogs that kill chickens?

Life is not always kind out here on the perimeter. The jungle can be a harsh place with lessons learned the hard way. You may remember the young pups who caught and killed a chicken a few days back? Well, the bigger brother decided he LIKED what he tasted and killed a couple more, for which he was severely beaten by my neighbor, Tomas. (I swear I did not snitch on the dogs.)

Well, today the young pup killed two more chickens and paid the ultimate price – Tomas put him down. In front of the other pups and their parents. No three strike rule here. If you don’t learn from the first warning – one strike and you’re out.

My bet is the other dogs won't go near the chickens for a while.

One of the many infrastructures that we very much take for granted in the US, is banking. An ATM on every street corner, just about. In rural Panama…. Not so much. I am fortunate to have a bank and ATM just 30 minutes from the cottage. Other Peace Corps volunteers travel 4-5 hours to bank.
Alas, my local bank has been under “fumigation and remodeling” for the last week and cash was running low. So, after an early morning of work, I jumped on a bus to Chepo, just 2 hours away. Hit the ATM (which somehow knows I speak English), and caught a return bus.
Please appreciate all the little (and big) conveniences which you enjoy in the States.

Izael at the computer for the first time

My little buddy Iza came by after school. He really likes looking at photos on the computer, so that's what we did. He did just fine at navigating the forward and back buttons and loved how he could make a picture bigger and smaller and bigger and smaller. Now that's some big time fun.
Of course, there were the non-stop questions about everything and anything. Sometimes he gave me a quizzical look, like "WTF?". Not sure if he didn't get my Spanish or if my answer just didn't make sense to him (like explaining a total eclipse of the sun - he just didn't get it or didn't believe it)
Anyway, we had fun and laughed and he got to raid my fruit supply. Watermelon has universal appeal. Lucky for me he doesn't like mango.

  

Big doings at the Panama Canal. The test ship passed all locks and the NEW wider, deeper canal route will open on June 26th. I won't miss history  being madeI'm headed to the City next week to see these monsters. The monster ships will pay upwards of $500K to transit the new locks. 

The Noni fruit and flower

My nose led me to a fragrant tree in a far corner of the property. It turned out to be a Noni tree, famous for its curative properties. Everyone tells me it really stinks, but I’ll give it a go. The explorer in me has got to try.

This water tank serves as a buffer between me and the local water system. Unlike the US, we get water only occasionally. So, when the water comes on it fills this tank, with a float valve cut-off so as not to overfill and waste any water. It means I always have water.
Last month, I started an experiment to see just how much water I use. (there are no meters on the water here) The results are now in ::: 34.52 gal per day. That compares with 25.5 GPD avg for rural Panama and 138 GPD for the US. Of course, I have no car to wash and my neighbor does my laundry.